Mf  /TOl?  XT  'WJ?  KTfU 

Of  trfi£Al  WMLm 


THE  TARIFF  QUESTION  FROM  a  NEW  POINT  of  VIEW 

IIVJDEIX 

SPECIAL    SUBJECTS 
The  Worm  at  the  Root  of  American  Prosperity : 

24-46;  270-27i:  279-282:  309:  310-311:  312-315:  319;    332-335:    344-346;    358-382: 
368-374;  425-426:  431-433;  450-453;  456-457. 

Gresham's  Law  Applied  to  Capital  (A  Brand  New  Idea): 

54-58;  98-103:  105-108:  12S-125;  126:  134:  138;    141;    142-145;    176-179;    183-191; 
22#;  272:  316-368. 

Nations  Flourish  or  Decay  in  Accordance  with  the  Above  Law, 
Unless  the  Law  is  Neutralized  by  Protective  Tariffs.  For  it  is 
the  Law  of  Economic  Gravitation,  as  Shown  by  the  Following 
Examples  : 

GREAT  BRITAIN— 52:    120-128:   239:   245;   285-292;   335-341:  348;   358-362;   8«7; 

369-370:  433-434. 

GERMAN v:-  34;  38-39:  45:  120-142;  173-174:  SOI;  358- S62;  366;  367;  381-383. 
IRKIAND:     286-287:  338-341.  INDIA: -335-338. 

To  Collect  Brokerage  on  Capital  Moving  in  Accordance  with  Gres- 
ham's Law  Applied  to  Capital,  Unneutralized  by  Protective 
Tariffs,  is  a  Temptation  which  Turns  Patriots  into  Industrial 
Judases,  as  in  the  Following  Examples : 

No.  1     37-40:  117:  131-142:  141:  147:  169:  389-S90:  440-441.          No.  2-36;    S8; 

380;  381:    381;    386;    469-1;    462.         No.    3  -216-224.         No.    4     304-310;    452. 

No.  5-40-43;  103-4;  222-223;  282-284;  317;  331-332;  372. 

The  Holy  Gospel  of  Work. 

70-79;  243-252;  263-270;  292-295;  317-319;  331-345;  431-437;  456-457;   460-461. 


Brazil : 

330-342:  349;  454. 

China: 

350-354. 

Colonies : 

332-346:  454-455. 
Consecrated  Advertising: 

416-120 

Conspiracy    Against  the  Stand- 
ard Oil  Co. 

1-9:   163-167:  236:  408-409:  410. 

Cotton : 

99;  136-137:  179:  206;   207;   209-210: 
3*8-339. 

Cuba: 

36-40:  391-394:   i.54. 

Divine  Afflatus : 

420-422. 

Effacement  of  Congress  : 

391-394:  440. 

Famines  in  Ireland  and  India: 

335-341. 

Hawaii : 

330-342:  349:    15 t. 

Japan : 

100-101:  183:  257. 


Magna  Charter: 

422- 4, 'I. 

Massachusetts : 

283-284. 

Mexico : 

330-342;  349:  454. 

Political    Persecution  of  Stand- 
ard Oil  Co. : 

1-9:  163-167:  236;  408-409;  410. 
Porto  Rico: 

330-342:  349;  454. 

Philippines : 

36-40;  330-368:  454. 

Tropics : 

56-58;  99:  320-332:  348-350. 

Reciprocity : 

282-284. 

R  oosevelt  : 

145-169:  374-404:  409-124. 

Standard  Oil  Co.: 

1-9:  163-167:  236:  408-409:  410. 
Sugar: 

442. 
Sunny  South : 

34-35:  99;     179:    206:    207;    209-210: 


326-327:  329-331. 
GENERAL  SUBJECTS: 
FORKIC.N  TRADE:— 24  16:  64-70:  94-105:   112:    1R3-199;  203-211;  292-299:  332-348;  368-374' 

445-153:  456-457. 
HUMAN  MOTIVKS;  -15-21. 

LAW:     9-15:  149-151:  401-102:  40H09:   122-124. 

PoLiTirAl    ECONOMY      46-6S;  79-94:  105-108:  191-203;  223-228;  238-240:  301-304-  310-332" 
346-368:  425-461. 

PRESS:— 108-118:   170-176:  299-301:  394*404. 
SoClOLOGY:-75-79;  243-252:  263-272:  292-299:  425-461. 
TARiFK:-24-46:   108-145:  176-182:  282-284:    304-310. 

5:    1-3-211  !  7:1-232. 


MALEFACTORS 

of 

GREAT  WEALTH ! 


By 

Roswell  A.  Benedict,  A.  M. 

Of  the  New  York  Bar 


AMERICAN   BUSINESS  BUREAU 

Room  58,  29  Broadway 
New  York 


Copyright  1907  by 
ROSWELL  A.  BENEDICT. 


A  CASE  ON  APPEAL 

FROM 

JUDGE  LYNCH 


TO 


THE  COURT  OF  FAIR  PLAY 


ARGUMENT 


R.  A.  BENEDICT 

OF  COUNSEL  FOR  DEFENDANT 


1561173 


May  it  please  your  Honors,  the  Judges  of  the 
Court  of  Business  Common  Sense  in  the  District 
of  the  United  States  of  America: 

In  arising  to  reply  to  the  lurid  rhetoric  of  the 
learned  counsel,  we  cannot  but  express  our  deep 
pain  at  the  course  taken  by  the  avalanche  of  molten 
words  poured  forth  by  our  learned  brothers  upon 
the  other  side.  Where  two  great  forces  are  op- 
posed to  each  other,  such  as  are  involved  in  this 
titanic  legal  struggle,  great  heat  follows  their  head- 
on  collision;  and  yet,  your  Honors,  we  cannot  im- 
agine any  ground  creditable  to  counsel  upon  which 
to  explain  the  explosion  of  so  much  dynamite  at 
our  devoted  client.  In  your  presence  we  have 
heard  our  client  assaulted  with  such  terrific  epi- 
thets as  "Malefactor  of  Great  Wealth"  and  "The 
Wickedest  Trust  in  the  World;"  but,  your  Hon- 
ors, denunciations  are  not  facts,  and  rhetoric  is 
not  necessarily  argument. 


"BUT  WHO  PRETENDER  IS  AND  WHO  IS  KING,  GOD  BLESS 
US  ALL !  IS  QUITE  ANOTHER  THING." 

Your  Honors,  while  walking  on  the  west  side  of 
Lower  Broadway  a  few  days  ago,  we  were  met  face 
to  face  by  a  wild-looking  man,  dressed  in  the  cos- 
tume of  a  Kough  Kider,  his  hair  floating  in  the 
wind,  his  eyes  red  with  a  fierce  light,  his  sombrero 
waving  aloft  in  his  left  hand,  and  his  right  hand 


pointing  across  to  No.  26  Broadway.  As  his  eye 
met  ours  and  he  saw  he  had  our  attention,  he  hissed 
and  sissed,  and  squealed  and  yelled,  as  he  shook 
the  out-stretched  hand  in  a  paroxysm  of  alcoholic 
fury,  "Down  with  the  trusts!  Down  with  26 
Broadway!  Down  with  the  malefactors  of  great 
wealth!  Down  with  the  wickedest  trust  in  the 
world!  'Rah  for  Teddy!  'Rah  three  times  and  a 
tiger  for  Teddy!  'Rah  for  the  champeen  trust-bus- 
ter, Mr.  Roosedore  Theovelt  Trustbuster!  'Rah 
for — "  but  a  policeman  seized  him  and  and  took 
him  to  the  alcoholic  ward.  Your  Honors,  this  is 
a  type  of  the  frenzy  which  is  just  now  passing  over 
this  otherwise  sensible  country.  It  is  a  sort  of  de- 
lirium tremens  of  the  judgment,  a  wavering  of  the 
eye  that  should  be  able  to  see  things  in  a  calm 
light,  unmiraged  by  hate,  envy,  jealousy,  and  covet- 
ousness.  For  the  time,  the  line  between  "mine  and 
thine"  has  quite  disappeared.  We  get  title  to  prop- 
erty now  in  a  different  way  from  what  we  once 
did.  We  used  to  think  a  man  who  paid  the  market 
price  for  things  owned  them.  We  did  not  know 
that  it  made  any  difference  how  large  a  heap  of 
things  he  got  in  this  way.  If  he  paid  for  them, 
they  were  his.  But  that  is  all  changed  now.  Now, 
if  you  want  what  another  man  has  bought  and  paid 
for,  and  spent  his  time  and  money  upon  and  im- 
proved and  made  more  valuable  than  when  he  got 
it,  all  you  have  to  do  is  to  call  him  a  "monopoliser" 
a  "malefactor  of  great  wealth,"  a  "cormorant 
trust,"  or  even  simply  a  "trust"  or  a  "very  rich 
wrong-doer."  That  settles  the  matter.  No  judge, 
jury,  or  anything  of  that  sort  is  at  all  necessary. 
The  old  title  goes  up  in  the  air  and  the  new  title 
settles  on  you,  and  the  goods  are  yours.  And  if 
anything  more  is  wanted  to  make  you  quite  sure 


of  yourself,  just  haul  the  old  owner  into  Court  and 
tell  him  if  he  don't  bring  in  his  books  and  show  up 
his  profits,  you  will  cut  him  off  from  business  by 
the  inter-state  commerce  clause  route.  Then  when 
his1  books  are  in  your  hands,  just  thumb  them  over  a 
while  until  you  have  found  his  profit  and  loss  ac- 
count. And  if  you  find  that  he  has  sometimes 
netted  a  loss,  don't  say  anything  about  it.  But 
wherever  you  find  a  profit,  print  it  in  red  letters 
in  all  the  yellow  newspapers  and  let  the  public  yell, 
"What  a  robber  F '  That  will  surely  fix  the  title  in 
you  so  it  wont  budge  a  hair.  If  you  and  the  pub- 
lic say  the  man's  profits  are  too  large,  that  sweeps 
away  his  last  right,  not  only  to  his  property,  but 
to  his  good  name  and  his  access  to  the  courts. 
Profits,  your  Honor,  are  outlawed,  since  the  great 
Standard  Oil  hold-up  in  Indiana,  Nobody  makes 
profits  any  more  but  thieves. 

But  soberly,  your  Honors,  since  when  and  by 
what  word  of  our  Constitution,  our  laws,  or  our 
common  usage,  has  the  public  had  the  right  to  in- 
spect private  books  and  thereupon  to  fix  the  profits 
of  business  men,  corporations,  or  "trusts,"  if  you 
please,  in  this  country?  Since  when  have  we  be- 
come a  socialistic  colony  and,  on  the  ground  that 
his  profits  were  too  large,  have  divested  of  his  title 
to  property  whomsoever  we  have  pleased?  To  what 
state  of  anarchy  are  we  drifting?  Who  of  us"  will 
be  safe  in  his  property,  if  we  once  admit  the  prin- 
ciple that  the  public  can  fix  our  profits,  whenever 
in  its  judgment  our  profits  are  too  large?  In  the 
name  of  the  God  of  Justice,  your  Honors,  if  this  is 
to  be  the  vogue,  if  any  one  at  all  is  to  be  compelled 
to  show  up  his  profits  in  order  that  the  public  may 
judge  as  to  their  proper  size  and  mulct  him  ac- 
cordingly, let  us  resolve  ourselves  into  a  socialist 


country  at  once  and  fix  the  exact  size  of  profits  in 
a  rule  which  shall  bind  all  alike,  and  appoint  a 
responsible  bench  of  judges  to  determine  the  facts 
and  apply  the  rule,  taking  away  from  him  whose 
profits  are  larger  and  adding  to  him  whose  profits 
are  smaller  than  lawful,  until  the  profits  of  every- 
body are  the  same  as  everybody  else's.  But  it  is 
surely  to  court  anarchy  and  property-chaos  to  drift 
on  in  this  way,  your  Honors;  to  have  a  Bureau  of 
Corporations,  on  one  side,  with  an  interstate-com- 
merce-clause club  in  one  hand  and  a  rope  in  the 
other,  strangling  from  private  citizens  of  one  of 
our  States  accounts  of  their  earnings  and  profits, 
to  be  published  to  the  country,  for  the  express  pur- 
pose of  inflaming  the  envious,  the  covetous,  the 
lazy,  and  thriftless  into  contempt  for  sacred  prop- 
erty rights;  and  on  the  other  side  an  untried  ex- 
politician  judge,  for  trumped-up  breaches  of  the 
Sherman  law  fixing  penalties,  not  according  to 
transgression,  but  according  to  profits  and  ability 
to  pay  the  fine.  This  frenzy  has  become  so  deep 
and  so  furious,  the  devil  of  the  itching  palm  has  be- 
come so  rampant,  your  Honors,  that  such  passages 
as  this  are  common  in  our  daily  papers : 

"Multitudes  will  compare  the  enormous  profits  upon 
moderate  capital  with  the  price  of  oil,  and  no  allegation 
of  reasonableness  of  price  will  prevent  pressure  for  still 
.further  cheapening.  If  the  disclosure,  assuming  it  to  be 
authentic,  should  drive  Standard  Oil  into  increasing  its 
capital  stock  four  or  five  times,  the  measure  of  self- 
defense  will  have  been  taken  too  late." 

And  this : 

"Blue  Monday  will  acquire  a  special  terror  for  the 
Standard  Oil  Company  if  every  wash-day  is  to  bring  a 
fresh  report  against  it  by  the  Commissioner  of  Corpora- 
tions. This  morning's  is  chiefly  taken  up  with  the  dis- 
covery that  the  Standard  sells  cheaper  abroad  than  at 
home.  Commissioner  Smith's  eagerness  in  announcing 
this  is  very  like  the  anxiety  of  the  small  boy  to  run  and 


tell  his  mother  the  great  news,  when  he  heard  that  a 
baby  sister  had  arrived.  The  American  people  had  sus- 
pected as  much.  When  Mr.  Rockefeller  told  them  how 
foolish  it  would  be  to  interfere  with  his  efforts  to  "con- 
quer the  market  of  the  world,"  they  had  a  pretty  shrewd 
notion  that  he  wished  to  bleed  them  in  order  to  do  it. 
But  what  a  powerful  tariff-revision  argument  Commis- 
sioner Smith  unwittingly  supplies!  All  that  he  alleges 
of  the  nefarious  Standard  practice  in  exacting  the  utter- 
most farthing  from  the  helpless  American  consumer,  in 
order  to  give  the  foreigner  cheap  goods,  is  as  true  of 
many  protected  manufacturers.  It  has  been  proved — nay, 
admitted — of  the  Steel  Corporation.  Now,  the  extortions 
of  the  Standard  could  probably  be  little  checked  by  re- 
vising the  tariff;  but  those  protected  industries  which 
hide  behind  high  duties,  while  they  skin  their  countrymen 
but  sell  cheap  abroad,  could  be  got  at  by  a  Congress  or 
an  Administration  that  dared  lay  a  hand  upon  the  tariff. 
Yet  the  President  is  standing  as  pat  as  mum;  and  Lodge 
declares,  tearfully  but  firmly,  that  the  tariff  cannot  be 
revised. ' ' 

Could  anything  be  more  monstrous,  your  Hon- 
ors, more  in  contempt  of  constitutional  rights  than 
these  suggestions  that  it  is  the  public's  business 
what  are  the  profits  of  the  Standard  Oil  Companj* 
or  when,  where,  or  at  what  price  it  sells  its  prop- 
erty! Oh,  your  Honors,  where  is  the  rule  and  the 
square !  Where  the  "equal  protection  of  the  laws !" 
For,  outside  of  the  pressure  from  supply  outstrip- 
ping demand,  the  only  "pressure  for  still  further 
cheapening"  which  can  be  applied  to  this  com- 
pany's products,  is  the  pressure  of  mob  law,  which 
it  would  be  the  duty  of  our  government,  under  the 
constitution,  to  relieve  with  fixed  bayonets,  in  the 
process  of  giving  this  company  the  "equal  -protec- 
tion of  the  laws."  That  fact  should  stamp  as  in- 
citements to  mob  madness  all  such  newspaper 
effusions  as  those  we  have  just  read. 

What  does  all  this  mean,  your  Honors?  What 
devil  is  possessing  our  land!  What  brainstorm  of 
folly?  Why,  even  our  President  is  daft  with  the 
same  afflatus!  He  also  fumes  and  gesticulates 
against  "rich  wrong-doers/'  "malefactors  of  great 


G 

wealth"  and  "very  rich  men,"  and  exactly  to  whom 
he  points  when  applying  these  epithets  is  only  too 
well  known.  Does  this  President  of  ours  know 
what  he  is  doing?  Does  he  know  to  what  chaos  in 
jurisprudence  his  teachings  tend?  Does  he  know 
that  he  is  maddening  the  masses  to  Lynch  proceed- 
ings? Does  he  realize  that  he  himself,  in  the  eyes 
of  the  mob,  has  accused,  tried,  condemned,  and 
branded  these  men  who  are  now  but  awaiting  ex- 
ecution— at  the  hands  of  the  mob? 

Let  such  teachings  continue,  your  Honors,  and, 
when  our  mobs  sack  and  burn  the  homes  and  the 
business  plants  of  our  "malefactors  of  great 
wealth,"  who  shall  say  that  they  are  not  Roose- 
velt understudies  in  logical  action?  The  wrongs 
he  sees  are  such  as  no  law  we  have  ever  saw. 
Why,  then  should  the  victims  of  such  wrongs  show 
greater  temperance  and  forbearance  than  their 
great  teacher.  Why  should  they  await  the  amend- 
ment to  the  constitution  and  the  making  of  laws 
thereunder  to  fit  the  crime  of  having  "great 
wealth,"  before  exemplifying  in  fiery  deeds  their 
abhorrence  of  that  wickedness  which  Mr.  Roosevelt 
objurgates  with  such  fiery  words?  Mr.  Roosevelt 
does  not  wait.  Why  should  his  disciples  who  hear 
his  fervid  gospel? 

Ah  your  Honors,  Mr.  Roosevelt  doesn't  seem  to 
know  that  we  have  laws  to  cover  crimes  and  that 
our  property  and  other  rights  are  as  fixed  as  if 
cast  in  brass.  If  those  he  denounces  have  not  of- 
fended by  these  century-old  standards  they  have  of- 
fended by  none;  and  his  denunciation  is  itself  a 
violation  of  law.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  if  they 
have  thus  offended,  the  courts  are  there  to  pass 
upon  the  facts  and  fix  the  penalty;  so  that  in  any 
event  the  President  himself  is  a  "wrong-doer."  In 


our  statute  laws  and  in  our  constitution  we  have 
our  written  law,  governed  by  the  principle  that 
they  must  be  construed  liberally  in  favor  of  the 
accused  and  strictly  against  the  curtailment  of  im- 
memorable  rights,  such  as  our  rights  of  property; 
and  in  our  common  law  we  have  long  lines  of  de- 
cisions, no  less  fixed  and  definite  in  that  regard 
than  our  lex  scripta.  There  is  no  latitude  left  for 
the  "construction"  which  Mr.  Roosevelt  would  have 
inject  full  of  India  rubber  every  fibre  of  our  legal 
rights  when  they  offend  "my  policies."  The  old 
maxim,  stare  decisis,  applied  century  after  century, 
has  made  hard  and  fast  those  very  rights  which 
Mr.  Roosevelt  by  his  "post-road"  clauses  and  his 
"interstate  commerce"  latitudinizings  would  re- 
mold to  his  own  notion.  And  still  our  President 
furies  and  fulminates  against  great  fortunes;  still 
ho  utters  the  hope  that  the  courts  may  yet  take  his 
view  of  constitutional  construction,  extra-legal  and 
extra-constitutional  though  it  is.  What  then  your 
Honors?  Suppose,  without  changing  our  consti- 
tution we  Rooseveltutionized  our  rules  of  construc- 
tion? Who  is  Mr.  Roosevelt;  whence  has  he  such 
an  infallible  scent  for  the  right  that  no  after-comer 
miii'ht  aspire  to  his  oracular  rank?  If  Mr.  Roose- 
velt may  construe  our  written  laws  according  to 
liis  judgment,  defy  the  maxim,  stare  decisis,  change 
the  meaning  of  the  English  language  to  suit  his 
ideas,  and  remake  our  whole  conception  of  prop- 
erty rights,  what  later  prophet  may  not  do  the 
same?  If  Mr.  Roosevelt  may  point  the  finger  of 
condemnation  at  a  man  who  is  worth  $100,000,000, 
as  a  "malefactor  of  great  wealth;"  or,  if  when  they 
have  exceeded  a  certain  limit  he  can  hold  up  the 
profits  of  a  corporation  to  excite  the  rabble,  who 
shall  sav  that  anv  other  man  whatever  mav  not 


s 

treat  his  neighbor  as  an  outlaw  because  the  neigh- 
bor wears  finer  clothing  than  he?  If  Mr.  Roose- 
velt may  so  judge,  why  not  the  next  one?  When 
the  legal  line  is  once  crossed ;  when  the  Eubicon  of 
fixed  law  is  once  behind  us,  how  broad  and  unlim- 
ited for  the  socialist  free-shooter  will  be  the  plains 
before  us?  What  is  a  fair  profit?  What  is  a  de- 
cent fortune? 

Ah,  your  Honors,  there  are  those  who  will  judge 
Mr.  Koosevelt  less  leniently  than  we.  There  will 
be  those  who  will  say  that  he  is  only  playing  a  des- 
perate game  of  popularity,  of  political  chess,  of  a 
demagogic  dosing  of  the  people  with  pink  pills  for 
paling  adoration  when  he  pursues  by  all  the  de- 
vious ways  of  press-agency  and  interstate-com- 
merce club  a  corporation  like  the  Standard  Oil 
Company,  w^hich  has  knowingly  broken  no  law.  Wo 
do  not  say  it ;  we  do  not  believe  it,  but  others  not  so 
full  of  loving  kindness  as  we  will  say  that  he  ap- 
pointed a  callow  politician  as  a  United  States 
judge  to  do  a  dirty  political  job,  because  no  well- 
seasoned  wearer  of  the  ermine  would  ever  have 
dared  to  drag  the  profit  and  loss  account  of  a  great 
corporation  into  court  as  a  basis  for  a  fine  so  bril- 
liantly great  that  it  would  gild  even  with  brighter 
gold  the  already  golden  halo  of  the  "champeen 
trust-buster"  of  the  age.  We  do  not  say  it,  but  oth- 
ers less  charitable  will  say  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  has 
thus  pursued  the  Standard  Oil  Company,  in  order 
that  he  may  mount  his  throne  and,  pointing  to  the 
wounded  monster,  exclaim,  "Oh  ye  loyal  people, 
our  most  faithful  subjects,  behold  the  mighty  dra- 
gon which  your  mightier  St.  George,  for  your  weal, 
hath  transfixed  with  the  sacred  spear  that  know- 
eth  no  brother!"  That  is  what  some  wicked  peo- 
ple will  say,  your  Honors;  some  people  so  wicked 


that  they  know  not  when  they  see  it  true  holiness, 
the  perfect  fount  of  square  deal  undenled.  We  say, 
confusion  upon  such  undesirable  citizens,  your 
Honors!  But  we  fear  our  anathemas  may  not 
carry. 

The  rule  has  always  been  that  a  man  was  en- 
titled to  as  much  property  as  he  could  get  a  legal 
title  to;  and  that  that  property,  subject  to  non- 
discriminating  taxation,  was  his  to  enjoy  without 
molestation,  unless1  obnoxious  to  police  or  sanitary 
regulations,  or  amenable  to  the  law  of  eminent  do- 
main. There  have  been  no  limitations  to  these 
rights;  no  measure  as  to  size  or  tenure  or  method 
of  devolution  during  the  life  of  the  owner,  other 
than  the  one  given.  Now  without  establishing 
any  different  hard  and  fast  rule  that  shall  govern 
us  all  alike,  suppose  Mr.  Roosevelt  be  allowed  to 
attack  first  this  and  then  that  individual  and  de- 
nounce him  as  "a  malefactor  of  great  wealth," 
making  the  fact  of  his  wealth  a  distinguishing 
characteristic  of  the  man  accused ;  suppose  we  per- 
mitted any  one  to  denounce  the  profits  of  this  or 
that  person — profits1  being  property — on  the  alleg- 
ation that  they  were  "too  large" — would  we  not, 
be  starting  down  the  chute  to  anarchy?  Would  it 
not  soon  be  a  go-as-you-please  shooting  match  for 
all  propertyless  bummers  able  to  buy  a  gun? 
What  will  guide  us,  your  Honors,  after  our  old 
rule  has  been  destroyed  and  before  a  new  rule  has 
been  made,  except  the  new  rule  whose  light  glim- 
mers in  the  heart-sanctuary  of  Mr.  Roosevelt  and 
liis  co-anarchists?  What  are  laws  for?  Why  have 
we  had  such  careful  definitions  of  property-rights 
for,  lo,  these  hundreds  of  years?  Is  it  not  that  a 
man  might  know  where  he  was1  at?  That  he  might 
know  whether,  if  he  taxed  his  brains  and  tasked 


10 

his  flesh  to  get  a  little  property  together,  he  might 
have  it  himself  instead  of  being  compelled  to  di- 
vide it  with  the  loafers  and  the  lazy,  hoodlums  and 
blackmailers,  who  idled  and  lay  in  wait  while  he 
labored?  What  is  a  country  without  definite  laws 
hedging  property  rights,  your  Honors?  Why,  your 
Honors,  our  laws  of  this  kind  are  all  the  compass 
we  have  to  find  our  property  bearings  by.  If  a 
ship  scorns  its  compass,  what  is  its  fate,  your 
Honors? 

Your  Honors,  we  have  often  wondered  if  Mr. 
Roosevelt  ever  stops  to  think  just  what  he  is  about 
in  constantly  using  such  hard  words  as  "malefac- 
tors of  great  wealth,"  "lawbreakers,"  and  the  like 
so  freely  in  connection  with  "wealth"  and  "riches." 
What  he  seems  to  us  to  be  doing  is  to  make  thought- 
less people  associate  wrongdoing  and  malefaction 
peculiarly  with  the  rich,  thus  psychologizing  the 
mob  to  believe  that  rich  folk  are  either  criminal 
because  they  are  rich  or  rich  because  they  are  crim- 
inal; and  that  they  are,  therefore,  outlaws  in  any 
event.  And,  your  Honors,  what  must  be  the  in- 
creasing effect  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  Sunday-school 
teachings,  when  to  his  other  hard  words  he  joins 
his  anathemas  against  "swollen"  fortunes  and  "the 
moiiace  of  great  accumulations  of  wealth?" 

This  line  of  talk  seems  to  give  point  to  his1  de- 
nunciations of  "malefactors  of  great  wealth;"  and 
to  lea.ve  the  impression  that  the  "rich"  are  a  shady 
lot  any  way  who  should  be  specially  regulated ; 
since  it  is  being  rich  wherein  consists1  the  "wrong- 
doing" and  "malefaction."  Is  this  judicious1,  your 
Honors?  Is  he  a  good  President  who  attaches  a 
stigma  to  property  and  thus  breeds  contempt  for 
property  rights?  Is  it  wise  to  teach  the  rabble 
thnt  a  man  is  rich  because  he  is  bad  and  poor  be- 


11 

cause  lie  is  good?  Is  it  the  rnan  with  much  or  the 
man  with  little  to  lose,  who  is  the  more  likely  to 
sack  and  burn  with  the  mob?  Does  not  the  man 
with  property  by  that  same  token  give  heavier 
bonds  for  good  behavior  than  the  man  without. 

It  seems  to  us,  your  Honors,  as  if  to  follow  the 
President  would  be  to  go  backward  into  the  bogs 
and  swamps  of  old,  where  might  made  right  and 
the  booty  belonged  to  the  man  able  to  swing  the 
heaviest  club.  For  laws  defining  property-rights 
seem  to  have  come  to  us  naturally  as  the  condition 
of  gregarious  life.  Away  back  somewhere,  the  big- 
gest bully  got  the  biggest  share  and  for  a  while  he 
had  only  to  shake  his  Big  Stick  to  make  all  the 
weaker  ones  leave  their  property  in  his  hands  and 
go  hide.  But  by  and  by  a  lot  of  these  weaker  ones 
got  together  and  formed  an  alliance  against  Big 
Sticks,  and  when  the  Bully  came  along  and  grabbed 
somebody's  horse  or  cow  or  pretty  daughter,  this 
Alliance  pitched  on  to  him  and  made  him  unhand. 
Then  he  argued  the  case  in  his  way  and  they  ar- 
gued it  in  theirs.  He  said  might  made  right  and 
they  said  property  belongs  to  him  who  gets  it  first 
from  some  fellow  not  in  their  circle  or  tribe.  And 
that  was  the  rule  they  made.  He  who  gets  a  thing 
first  is  its  owner — meaning  always,  unless  he  took 
it  by  force  from  one  of  them.  But  that  was  the 
beginning  of  property  law.  A  lot  of  men  leagued 
together  and  beat  the  Bully,  Might  makes  right; 
and  then,  so  neither  one  of  the  alliance  could  have 
an  advantage  over  any  other,  they  made  this  rule. 
That  was  to  settle  the  question  of  title.  And  to 
settle  the  question,  all  that  one  of  the  Alliance 
had  to  do  was  to  prove  he  got  there  first,  and  not 
that  lie  had  swung  the  Biggest  Stick.  You  see, 
your  Honors,  it  was  a  general  rule  or  law  and  it 


12 

covered  all  the  community  with  the  same  mantle. 
It  did  not  say,  He  who  gets  it  first  owns  it,  unless 
he  is  "a  malefactor  of  great  wealth"  That  was 
too  indefinite  and  it  would -have  spoiled  the  sim- 
plicity of  the  rule  to  lug  in  differences  made  by 
being  rich  or  poor.  But  the  Alliance  said,  Who- 
ever will  live  according  to  this  law,  is  one  of  us, 
and  in  order  that  each  may  know  when  a  thing  is 
his'n,  we  will  all  stand  together  and  make  it  his'n, 
"If  he  got  it  first!"  But  these  early  law-makers 
had  to  go  a  step  farther  by  and  by.  They  traded 
among  themselves,  and,  as  usual,  there  was  a  lot  of 
bad  men  among  them  who  trumped  up  titles  to  the 
property  which  some  of  their  brothers  had  in  the 
Alliance  and  turned  every  stone  to  cheat  them- 
selves into  property  they  had  not  earned.  And 
these  law-makers  had  to  lay  down  other  laws  or 
rules  according  to  which  property  once  "mine"  was 
declared  now  to  be  "thine."  And  the  rule  was 
that  if  a  piece  of  property  was  "mine"  it  became 
"thine"  if  the  first  party  delivered  it  to  the  second 
party  of  his  own  free  will  and  said  it  should  thence- 
forth belong  to  the  second  party.  Or  if  he  had 
not  so  delivered  it,  still,  if  the  second  party  could 
prove  that  the  second  party  had  bought  it  of  the 
first  party  and  had  given  something  of  value 
in  exchange  for  it,  it  would  belong  to  the 
second  party.  But  all  these  were  general  rules, 
amoving  to  everybody  alike,  without  dis- 
tinction between  rich  and  poor.  There  was  no 
limit  set  to  the  amount  of  property  one  could  get 
in  this  wav.  Nobody  was  called  "a  malefactor  of 
great  wealth"  because  he  had  more  than  another. 
The  T>eoDle  did  not  bother  about  a  man  because  he 
was  ri^h.  Thev  were  not  afraid  of  him  because  he 
was  rich.  Being  rich  did  not  make  him  proof 


13 

against  the  Big  Stick  of  the  constable  if  he  stole 
or,  thinking  his  riches'  would  save  him,  hurt  a  neigh- 
bor.    But  the  great  point  is,  your  Honors,  these 
rules  were  general  rules  and  they  applied  to  all 
alike;  because  in  order  to  have  them  enforced  they 
had  to  please  all  and  be  just  as  good  for  one  as 
another,  or  the  camp  would  have  been  broken  up 
into  parties  of  those  whom  the  rules  favored  and 
those  whom  they  did  not  favor.     So,  your  Honors, 
the  excuse  for  making  a  law  lies  in  its  universal  ap- 
plication.    These  laws  have  come  down  to  us  with- 
out change.     As  it  was  in  the  savage  tribe,  so  now, 
if  a  man  gets  a  thing  first  and  there  is  no  other 
owner,  it  is  his.     If  his  neighbor  owns  it,  still  he 
can  have  it,  with  the  neighbor's  consent;  and  when 
he  gets  it  in  this1  way,  it  is  his  without  question; 
and  any  man  who  goes  up  and  down  the  land  call- 
ing him  a  "malefactor  of  great  wealth"  because  he 
has  gotten  together  a  lot  of  property  in  this  way, 
call  it  the  cottage  of  the  laborer  or  the  palace  of 
the  rich  man,  call  it  stocks  and  bonds,  or  tenements 
on  the  East  Side,  or  call  it  profits  of  the  Standard 
Oil  Company  or  of  the  United  States  Steel  Corpor- 
ation,   or   what   not,    is   an    insurrectionary   who 
should  be  restrained.     For,   your    Honors,    if   we 
listen  to  him,  we  shall  find  ourselves  right  back  in 
the  bogs  and  swamps  of  the  Big  Stick  and  "Might 
makes  right,"    Our  alliance  will  have  been  broken 
up.     The  rule  will  have  been  destroyed  and  none 
of  us  will  know  whether  our  title  is  good.     We 
got  it  by  the  old  rule,  to  be  sure.    But  that  don't 
count  now.     A  new  rule  has  been  added  to  which 
we  have  not  agreed.     But,  nevertheless,  there  are 
a  lot  of  us  who  will  like  the  new  rule  even  if  we 
have  not  agreed  to   it;  even  if  it  has  not  been 
written  into  our  Constitution  and  laws  and  regu- 


14 

larly  adopted  as  our  law.  Some  of  us  will  like  it, 
because  we  have  no  property  of  our  own;  and  be- 
cause it  will  give  us1  some  of  the  property  of  other 
people  who  have  had  greater  luck  than  we  in  heap- 
ing up  property.  But  others  of  us  who  have  heap- 
ed up  the  property  will  object  to  the  rule.  We  will 
holler,  "No  fair !"  Why  did  you  not  make  the  new 
rule  before  we  worked  so  hard  and  got  so  much 
property  together?  Why  did  you  not  tell  us  that, 
no  matter  how  hard  we  worked  for  it,  it  was  going 
to  be  unlawful  for  us  to  have  any  more  property 
than  the  rest  of  you?  Why  did  you  not  begin  to 
cry  out  "Malefactors  of  Great  Wealth !"  before  we 
were  wealthy?  Why  did  you  not  give  us  a  chance 
also  to  lie  by  quietly  until  a  lot  of  fools  had  worked 
their  heads  off  getting  property  together;  and  then 
join  the  rest  of  you  in  shouting  "Malefactors  of 
Great  Wealth !"  and  in  dividing  among  ourselves 
the  property  of  these  malefactors.  We  say  all  this 
is  "no  fair;"  you  have  tajsen  a  mean  advantage  of 
us.  Before  we  had  done  so  much  under  the  old 
rule,  you  should  have  told  us  that  that  was  the  rule 
no  longer.  And  then,  too,  there  is  the  difficulty 
of  making  the  new  rule  work  smoothly;  because 
you  will  have  to  fix  the  line  of  wealth  within  which 
we  cannot  be  called  "Malefactors  of  Great  Wealth," 
and  where  will  it  be?  At  $1000?  At  |10,000? 
At  $100,000?  At  $1,000,000— or  where" 

This  is  a  very  broad  and  a  very  difficult  ques- 
tion, your  Honors.  We  are  facing  legal  chaos  in 
its  answering,  unless  we  hold  on  to  the  old  rule 
until  the  new  one  has  been  whittled  down  to  a 
very  nice  fit.  Meantime,  your  Honors,  we  think 
it  would  be  a  very  good  plan  not  to  call  anybody 
"Malef actors  of  Great  Wealth"  until  we  fix  a  hard 
and  fast  line  bevond  which  the  accumulation  of 


15 

wealth  will  be  a  malefaction ;  and  not  to  iterate 
and  reiterate  the  statement  that  we  are  going  to 
bring  the  "rich"  to  justice,  when  the  word  "rich" 
carries  no  necessary  stigma  with  it  before  the  law 
and  cannot  differentiate  the  good  from  the  bad. 
If  we  did  thus  rant  against  malefactors  as  being 
rich,  when  the  law  merely  divides  citizens  into 
those  who  obey  the  law  and  those  who  do  not,  we 
should  think  the  reason  why  we  lugged  in  "rich" 
all  the  while  was  because  we  were  a  demagogue 
trying  to  fool  the  people  with  a  pretense  of  zeal 
and  were  putting  votes  higher  than  communal  mo- 
rality. 

But  your  Honors,  there  is  a  reason.  This  other- 
wise sensible  and  just  public  of  ours  was  not 
wrought  up  to  this  point  of  lawless  frenzy  by  any 
stranger.  There  is  method  in  this  madness,  the 
method  of  experts  in  preparing  public  madness  to 
compass  private  ends.  And,  your  Honors,  we  are 
grieved  to  say  that,  in  the  whole  trend  of  their 
arguments  before  this  Court,  counsel  for  these  wily 
plaintiffs,  have  shown  that,  in  their  view,  a  fee  will 
justify  any  associations,  any  methods,  and  any  col- 
lateral wrong. 


II 


PERSONAL  BITTERNESS    SHOULD    BE    FOREIGN  TO    THIS 
CONTROVERSY.      ALL   MEN    DO   AS   THEY    MUST. 

For  whatever  purpose  this  withering  fire  of 
bard  names  was  furied  forth  by  counsel  for  the 
wily  plaintiffs,  we  think  we  can  see  more  and  boi- 
ter  reasons  than  those  of  "total  depravity"  and 


16 

''abhorrent  greed" — to  quote  the  exact  language  of 
plaintiff's  counsel — urging  American  Production, 
the  defendant  in  this  action,  to  appeal  this  case 
to  this  the  most  equitable  court  of  our  nation. 
And,  furthermore,  may  it  please  your  Honors,  we 
do  not  propose,  in  our  contention  to  the  contrary 
of  the  argument  of  plaintiff's  counsel,  to  return 
evil  for  evil  and  fritter  away  our  breath  and  the 
patience  and  time  of  this  most  high  court  with 
argument®  ad  hominem  and  loud  denunciations  of 
wickedness  of  these  wily  plaintiffs.     For  although 
we  can  easily  prove  the  wily  plaintiff  the  Importing 
Trust,  to  be  a  pirate,  a  pickpocket,  an  assassin  and 
an  escaped  convict,  and  the  hardly  less  wily  plain- 
tiff the  Exporting  Trust    to    be   almost   as   bad, 
nevertheless  we  shall  do  this,  if  we  do,  in  no  spirit 
of  bitterness,  but  rather  as  our  duty  to  our  client, 
American  Production,  and   altogether   in     sorrow 
and  in  no  wise  in  anger;  and  the  reason  of  our 
Christian  spirit  is  this: 

After  all  that  has  been  said  on  the  subject  we  do 
not  believe,  your  Honors,  that  the  human  heart  is 
such  a  very  bad  thing  in  it's  intent.  If  it  is1  "alto- 
gether wricked,"  it  is  because  bread  and  butter  and 
their  equivalents,  in  one  sense  or  another,  lie  in 
that  direction.  We  do  not  believe  that  a  poor 
human  creature  "wills"  either  to  be  good  or  bad. 
We  believe  such  a  creature  has  an  earnest  desire 
to  live  with  the  least  pain  and  the  greatest  com- 
fort; which  earnest  desire  is  called  by  some  "the 
instinct  of  self-preservation."  In  line  with  this 
instinct  of  self-preservation,  your  Honors,  there 
have  gathered,  through  the  long  ages  of  evolution, 
a  group  'of  proclivities',  all  of  which  are  indispen- 
sable to  agreeable  existence,  and  all  of  which  are 
expressed  by  brain-cells,  also  outlined  through  the 


17 

ages.  In  fact  these  proclivities  are  the  ministers 
unto  this  physical  life  which  to  most  of  us  is  so 
precious;  and  we  could  not  dismiss  either  of  them 
without  opening  a  window  to  a  harsh  wind  that 
might  blow  out  the  little  candle  of  our  life.  In 
addition  to  these  proclivities,  we  have  all  been 
gifted  with  intelligence,  also  a  proclivity,  and  also 
represented  by,  and  acting  through  brain-cells,  in- 
voluntarily formed,  the  true  purpose  of  which  is 
to  make  plain  to  our  other  proclivities  the  clearest 
and  surest  path  to  their  safe  exercise  in  the  line 
of  their  object. 

And,  your  Honors,  the  man  who  owns  these 
proclivities,  although  they  have  absolute  power 
over  his  thoughts  and  actions,  had  no  choice  in 
saying  how  one  proclivity  should  be  related  to 
another..  With  different  people,  these  proclivities 
have  different  relative  values.  In  some,  one  pro- 
clivity will  predominate;  in  others,  another.  If 
a  man's  proclivities  are  nicely  balanced  one  against 
another,  you  have  a  model  citizen.  But  if  they 
are  out  of  balance,  you  may  have  what  is  common- 
ly called  a  "crank ;"  or  it  may  be  a  criminal.  But 
in  every  case  what  he  will  do  under  given  circum- 
stances is  determined  by  the  relative  influence  of 
these  groups  of  brain-cells  which  represent  the 
proclivities;  and  all  the  relative  sizes  and  values 
of  these  groups  are  determined  by  parentage  and 
environment,  over  which  the  subject  has  no  con- 
trol. The  manner  in  which  these  proclivities, 
through  their  respective  groups  of  brain-cells,  come 
into  action  which  eventuates  or  not  in  muscular 
activity  on  the  part  of  the  subject, — according  to 
the  nature  of  the  proclivity — is  also  entirely  be- 
yond the  control  of  the  subject,  such  action  being 
automatic  and  irresistible.  For,  as  we  have  said, 


18 

these  proclivities  are  the  direct  off -spring  of  what 
we  call  "the  instinct  of  self-preservation,"  and 
their  only  business  is  to  save  the  body  of  the  subject 
from  pain  or  furnish  it  with  pleasure.  Therefore 
the  physical  condition  of  the  body  is  the  particu- 
lar concern  of  the  proclivities  and  that  condition  is 
evidenced  by  sensations  over  which  again  the  sub- 
ject has  no  control.  For  instance,  if  the  stomach 
be  empty,  the  subject  feels  hunger.  This  sensation 
of  hunger  causes  an  association  of  ideas  which  sug- 
gests the  necessity  of  food.  The  hunger  procliv- 
ity awakens  the  reasoning  or  intuitional  proclivity, 
through  which  arises  into  consciousness  a  vision 
called  "memory"  of  when  and  where  food  has  been 
theretofore  obtained;  and  muscular  play  which 
takes  the  direction  of  food  follows  irresistibly  as 
to  the  subject  and  naturally  as  to  its  position  in 
the  series  of  actions  over  which  the  proper  procliv- 
ity has  control,  that  proclivity  for  the  moment  rep- 
resenting the  entire  ego  and  wearing  the  ego's 
apparel.  And  so  with  any  other  matter  affecting 
the  physical  life  of  the  subject.  A  physical  con- 
dition which,  on  behalf  of  the  subject,  requires 
action  to  secure  pleasure  or  avoid  pain,  immediate- 
ly causes  a  memory  or  vision  to  arise  in  conscious- 
ness, which  is  associated  with  some  former  action 
to  the  same  end:  and  through  the  motive-instiga- 
tion of  the  particular  group  of  brain-cells  affected, 
muscular  action  follows  in  the  direction  of  the 
proper  relief.  All  this  is  done  irresistibly,  so  far 
as  the  subject  alone  is  concerned.  In  a  word,  the 
exciting  cause  of  proclivity-action  lies  beyond  the 
control  of  the  subject  in  a  physical  sensation  or 
condition  which  his  humanity  imposes  upon  him; 
and  the  action  follows  its  sufficient  cause.  A 
particular  point  that  we  wish  to  make  is  that 


19 

sometimes  the  association  of  ideas  awakened  by  a 
given  physical  condition  arouses  several  proclivi- 
ties at  once,  which  will  persist  in  proportion  to 
the  power  of  the  cells  and  of  the  exciting  cause. 
Sometimes  the  activities  of  these  proclivities  har- 
monize and  so  contribute  to  one  and  the  same 
result.  Then  there  is  no  sense  of  conflict  or  notion 
of  decision  or  "willing."  But  sometimes  opposed 
proclivities  may  be  aroused  simultaneously;  as  for 
instance,  the  desire,  usually  called  "acquisitive- 
ness" and  the  desire  usually  called  "benevolence." 
In  this1  case,  the  stronger  proclivity  will  prevail 
and  the  subject  will  prove  himself  either  an  honest 
man  or  a  thief,  according  to  the  relative  powers 
of  the  brain-cells  representing  these  proclivities, 
and  the  degree  of  excitement  which  each  has 
suffered.  In  any  event,  the  subject  was  fore-or- 
dained from  the  foundation  of  the  race,  under 
certain  circumstances'  acting  as  excitants  to  pro- 
clivity-action, to  be  either  an  honest  man  or  a 
thief;  but  being  conscious  of  the  existence  of  two 
different  emotions,  one  leading  towards  the  act 
and  the  other  away  from  it,  the  subject  will  believe 
that  he  "willed"  either  to  leave  his  neighbors  purse 
alone  or  to  appropriate  it,  according  as  one  or  the 
other  group  of  brain-cells  proved  the  stronger. 
He  could  not  see  the  complex  machinery  which 
caused  his  act.  He  could  not  realize  that  the 
groups  of  brain-cells  which  were  the  next  cause 
of  his  action,  whether  he  stole  or  stole  not,  were 
"the  heirs  of  all  the  ages,"  and  that  he  could  not 
change  their  action  nor  prevent  them  for  the  time 
being  from  assuming  his  clothing,  any  more  than 
he  could  cast  a  star  from  it's  celestial  location. 
This  is  natural,  your  Honors.  He  felt  "free," 
therefore,  he  believed  he  was  "free"  and  that  his 


20 

act  was  one  of  a  "free  will."  But  if  his  will  were 
as  free  as  it  seems  to  be;  were  his  choice  between 
two  courses  of  action  possible,  he  would  be  nothing 
less  than  God  himself.  Alas!  the  logic  of  events 
proves  him  to  be,  just  as  he  is,  a  single  little  un- 
Avilling  event  in  the  endless  string  of  changes 
which  the  matter  composing  his  body  has  been  go- 
ing through  since  it's  atoms  were  created.  So  far 
as  the  individual  is  concerned,  he  has  no  more 
"free  will"  than  if  he  were  stone  instead  of  flesh 
and  blood,  the  belief  that  his  will  is  "free"  being 
merely  an  inference  from  faulty  premises.  There- 
fore, your  Honors,  all  our  actions  being  thus  the 
result  of  circumstances  over  which  none  of  us  has 
any  control,  and  every  one  of  us  in  body,  mind  and 
soul,  being  just  exactly  of  that  causal  nature  which 
must  produce  the  very  actions  proceeding  from  us, 
whatever  be  a  person's  acts,  we  cannot  say  "He 
did  it  to  injure  me."  Whatever  he  did  was  because 
of  the  peculiar  balance  of  his  proclivities ;  proclivi- 
ties caused  by  the  necessity  of  keeping  his  body 
from  pain  or  affording  it  pleasure.  All  we  can 
honestly  say  is,  "He  is  so  constructed  from  the 
beginning  of  time  that  this  act  was  caused  by 
what  he  could  not  control."  Your  Honors,  this 
question  of  the  origin  of  proclivities,  namely,  as 
the  guardians  of  our  physical  lives,  the  sine  qua 
non  'of  the  perdurance  of  our  kind,  is  of  great 
importance  to  our  argument  and  we  venture  to 
summarize  our  remarks  thereon,  as  follows: 

Our  most  remote  evolutionary  ancestor  was  a 
minute  organic  cell. 

This  cell  developed  a  muscular  and  a  nervous 
system. 

Certain  things  were  necessary  to  its  continued 
life. 


21 

It  had  sensations,  denoting  need. 

These  sensations  had  a  reflex  effect  upon  the 
motor  nerves. 

The  muscles  of  locomotion  by  an  equally  reflex 
action  of  these  motor  nerves  moved  the  cell  into 
such  a  relation  with  its'  environment  as  to  reduce 
the  need  and  allay  the  exciting  sensation. 

In  the  course  of  ages  the  one  cell  developed 
around  it  other  cells,  which  were  the  sensoria, 
corresponding  to  other  needs  Avhich  arose  from 
variety  of  environment. 

This  collection  of  cells  was  what  we  now  call 
the  "brain,'rand  they  developed  a  clearing  house 
for  their  sensations,  which  interrupted  the  in- 
stantaneous play  between  some  of  their  sensa- 
tions and  the  motor  nerves. 

This  clearing  house  we  call  "memory."  It  was 
the  result  of  past  experience.  It  contained  the 
beginnings  of  our  metaphysical  law  which  we  call 
"Association  of  Ideas."  Here  began  the  develop- 
ment of  the  reasoning  creature.  Sensations  then 
awoke  an  association  of  ideas1,  a  comparison  of 
experiences  had  under  similar  sensations.  Those 
"memories"  which  were  connected  with  agreeable 
results  then  transmitted  the  delayed  current  of 
sensation  to  the  motor  nerves  which  set  the 
muscles  in  operation  and  disposed  the  whole 
organism  in  accordance  with  the  most  satisfac- 
tory experiences'.  Thus  eon  after  eon  passed 
by.  The  brain  grew  and  became  more  and  more 
minutely  correspondent  to  environment.  It  was 
not  a  simple  but  a  very  complex  machine. 
Groups  of  cells  had  evolved  to  correspond  to  par- 
ticular phases  of  life  of  the  subject,  all  excitable 
through  specific  sensations,  which  transmitted 
their  currents'  through  the  clearing  house  of 
memory  and  by  association  of  ideas  touched  just 
the  requisite  motor  nerves  to  provoke  muscular 
action  which,  if  the  memory-record  was  correct, 
would  supply  the  need  and  allay  the  sensation. 
This  is  whence  we  came  and  what  we  are — or- 
ganic machines. 


22 

Your  Honors,  there  is  nothing  we  can  think  of 
which  so  well  illustrates  our  notion  of  human  ac- 
tion as  our  modern  graphophone.  The  machine  has 
externally  the  same  identical  appearance  no  mat- 
ter what  record  is  being  delivered  from  it.  But  in 
fact  it  changes  its  identity  with  the  changing  rec- 
ord. The  same  throat  is  used,  but  its  utterances 
are  from  a  different  source  from  record  to  record. 
Under  some  circumstances  it  is  a  well-known  prinia 
donna;  under  others,  it  is  a  celebrated  brass  band. 
And  so  on  indefinitely.  Yet  all  the  time  it  looks 
the  same  to  the  naked  eye.  Now  a  man  is  a  grapho- 
phone. One  set  of  proclivities  speaks  through  his 
mouth,  looks  from  his  eye,  acts  in  his  movements. 
Then  he  is  one  creature.  The  record  is  changed 
and  he  is  another  creature.  Another  set  of  proclivi- 
ties has  been  attached  to  the  nerves  and  the  muscles 
by  another  sensation;  and  while  externally  ident- 
ical, the  internal  representative  of  the  ego  is  differ- 
ent. How  often  we  have  heard  it  said,  "Smith  was 
not  himself  to-day,"  meaning  that  he  was  different 
in  the  way  he  impressed  the  witness.  Sometimes 
little  Tommy  is  "as  cross  as  a  bear" ;  and  sometimes 
"as  good  as  an  angel."  They  are  different  Tom- 
mies. Sometimes  one  group  of  proclivities  is  act- 
ing through  his  graphophone  of  a  body,  sometimes 
another.  But  his  body  is  merely  the  plaything  of 
his  proclivities,  and  his  proclivities  are  as  merely 
the  plaything  of  his  physical  s-ensations,  resulting 
from  a  full  or  empty,  a  sick  or  well  stomach,  re- 
freshed or  tired  muscles,  or  some  other  condition  of 
body  or  environment;  or  resulting  even  from  some 
state  of  mind — brain-cells — caused  by  some  circum- 
stance which  has  awakened  a  peculiar  association 
of  ideas,  but  with  regard  to  which  the  setting  off  of 
one  proclivity  against  another  may  have  neutralized 


23 

action.  And  it  may  be  added  that  his  sensations 
are  the  mere  plaything  of  his  internal  and  external 
environment  which  in  turn  are  the  mere  plaything 
of  the  course  of  creation  and  evolution. 

Under  this  theory  of  ours,  your  Honors,  human 
conduct  can  best  be  explained.  It  is  easier  to  be- 
lieve that  every  human  action  is  inevitable  than  to 
believe  that  it  had  no  cause  back  of  the  actor.  How 
otherwise  can  you  explain  the  conduct  of  the  man 
who,  in  spite  of  resolutions  to  the  contrary,  solemn 
promises,  and  earnest  desire,  always  falls  a  victim 
to  the  same  temptation  and  commits  the  same  act 
over  and  over  again,  never  once  forgetting  his  for- 
mer revolting  experience  and  its  bad  effect  upon  his 
happiness?  He  promised  better  things'  while  under 
the  influence  of  one  set  of  proclivities;  and  broke 
his  promises  under  the  influence  of  another  set. 
The  fact  is  there  are  as  many  different  men  in  one 
body  as  are  possible  from  permuting  and  combining 
human  proclivities. 

But  let  no  man  say,  your  Honors  that  if  a  man 
cannot  help  doing  what  is  injurious  to  others,  and 
therefore  called  "wrong,"  he  ought  not  to  be  re- 
strained. If  a  man  kills,  he  is  dangerous  to  life. 
Tf  lie  steals,  he  is  dangerous  to  property.  And  as 
you  would  confine  a  wild  animal;  destroy  a  mad 
dog;  or  raise  an  umbrella,  it  is  fitting  and  right 
that  rational  beings  should  protect  themselves  from 
unhappily  contrived  human  beings  by  such  re- 
straint as  will  remove  the  danger. 

Therefore,  your  Honors,  we  have  no  bitterness 
toward  the  wily  plaintiffs.  They  are  as  they  were 
oveated.  They  do  as  they  must.  Their  machinery 
is  operated  by  unseen  excitants;  they  naturally 
move  in  line  with  the  instinct  of  self-preservation; 
or  at  least  intend  to;  and  they  are  in  no  wise  re- 


24 

sponsible  in  any  abstract  way ;  but  if  they  are  doing 
injury  to  our  client,  they  must  be  properly  re- 
strained in  ways  which  mature  deliberation  will 
determine. 


III. 


INFLAMMATORY     DENUNCIATION     AND     EXAGGERATED 
EPITHETS  ARE  frOT  ARGUMENT. 

Your  Honors  we  desire  to  call  to  your  attention 
various  expressions,  in  addition  to  those  already 
mentioned  as  uttered  by  counsel  for  the  wily  plain- 
tiffs, the  aforesaid  Importing  Trust  and  Exporting 
Trust,  and  to  move  that  they  be  expunged  from  the 
record  of  argument  in  this  action.  From  what  we 
have  just  said,  it  appears  that  there  is  and  has  been 
no  such  thing  as  malice  in  any  action  heretofore 
taken  by  the  defendant,  American  Production ;  that 
whatever  it  has  done  is  but  the  result  of  its  inherent 
nature,  which  it  did  not  contrive  and  over  which  it 
hath  no  control ;  and  that  the  exciting  causes  of  all 
its  action  lie  beneath  its  reach  somewhere  in  the 
very  roots  of  its  being.  Therefore,  when  plaintiffs' 
counsel  lay  any  action  of  this  defendant  to  "cor- 
porate greed" ;  when  they  hiss  between  their  set 
teeth  the  expression  "predatory  wealth,"  'or  when 
they  thunder  out  "protectionist  avarice,"  they  are 
using  baseless  terms,  and,  we  fear,  attempting  to 
excite  passions,  appeal  to  which  is  not  warranted 
by  any  action  of  our  client,  American  Production ; 
unless,  in  the  vocabulary  of  the  modern  "trust- 
buster,"  "greed"  means  the  ordinary  enterprise 
shown  by  any  person  in  securing  the  profit  allowed 


25 

by  the  current  degree  of  demand  for  his  goods1; 
"predatory  wealth,"  capital  industriously  earning 
dividends,  in  the  same  way  pursued  by  capital 
everywhere,  since  capital  came  into  being;  and 
"protectionist  avarice"  the  natural  desire  to  con- 
fine American  demand  to  American  supply,  giving 
all  Americans  a  fair  field  with  favor  to  none.  But, 
your  Honors,  although  we  can  honestly  say  that 
our  client  has  done  naught  to  merit  these  furious 
epithets,  since  what  it  does  is  without  malice  and 
without  volition,  AVC  are  likewise  ready  to  admit 
that  there  is  no  malice  in  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Im- 
porting Trust,  and  its1  partner  in  sin,  the  Export 
ing  Trust,  when  they  thus  by  proxy  pour  the  lava 
of  their  volcanic  denunciations  upon  the  head  of  our 
devoted  client,  American  Production.  And  yet, 
your  Honors,  as  we  said  a  little  way  back,  there  is 
a  reason.  These  plaintiffs  do  not  attack  our  client 
in  this  way  except  it  be  for  the  purpose  of  self- 
preservation,  of  diminishing  pain  or  increasing 
pleasure  for  themselves,  in  accordance  with  the  re- 
sults of  our  analysis  of  human  actions  a  few  mo- 
ments ago.  The  withering  anathemas  of  these 
plaintiffs  merely  stand  for  an  attempt  to  destroy 
an  enemy,  not  for  the  joy  of  the  destruction,  but  in 
order  to  remove  from  their  path  an  obstacle  in  the 
way  of  their  happiness.  Now,  your  Honors,  it  is 
very  easy  to  see  the  object  of  all  these  hard  names 
as  applied  to  our  client  by  the  wily  plaintiffs.  They 
wis'h  to  destroy  our  client,  American  Production,  at 
least  for  a  time,  in  order  that  they  may  enjoy  what, 
in  a  measure,  American  Production  is  now  enjoy- 
ing, viz.,  the  American  domestic  market;  the  Im- 
porting Trust,  as  a  location  for  the  sale  of  cargoes 
of  foreign  goods,  whereon  it  will  make  a  profit;  and 
the  Exporting  Trust,  as  a  location  where  it  can  buy 


"raw  materials"  free  of  tariff  duties,  to  work  up 
into  other  goods  for  the  export  trade.  This,  your 
Honors,  is  the  purpose  of  all  this  wild  tirade 
against  American  Production,  so  cunningly  called 
"the  trusts"  by  counsel  for  the  defense.  It  is  on 
this  account,  your  Honors,  that  these  plaintiffs 
have  so  bitterly  attacked  our  beneficent  client, 
American  Production,  and  not  because  they  delight 
to  see  honest  and  industrious  American  citizens 
cast  down  unto  death  with  the  despair  that  seizes 
men  when  they  see  their  employment  gone  and 
slow  starvation  menacing  them  and  their  dear  wives 
and  children;  not  because  they  delight  to  see  this 
great  nation  halt  upon  its  upward  path  to  bury  its 
untimely  dead  and  build  afresh  the  structure  once 
so  fair  and  necessary  to  its  life  and  to  its  progress, 
but  shaken  to  the  earth  by  the  dynamite  conspira- 
cies of  these  wily  plaintiffs ;  for,  your  Honors,  these 
plaintiffs  are  not  bloodthirsty  and  wanton,  but 
merely  market-thirsty  and  hungry  for  trade,  and 
the  reflex  action  of  their  longing  sensations  takes 
no  note  of  the  horrors,  far  worse  than  internecine 
war,  through  which  our  devoted  nation  must  wade, 
if  "tariff  revision"  finally  accords  them  their  de- 
sires. 


27 


IV. 


THE  PLAINTIFF,  THE  IMPORTING  TRUST,  IS  THE  CEN- 
TURY OLD  MORTAL  ENEMY  OF  AMERICAN  PRODUC- 
TION, AND  ALL  IT  SAYS  ABOUT  "THE  TRUSTS," 
THEREBY  MEANING  AMERICAN  PRODUCTION,  THB 
DEFENDANT  IN  THIS  ACTION,  SHOULD  BE  TAKEN 
CUM  GRANO  SALIS. 

Let  us  be  just,  your  Honors,  and,  before  we  con- 
demn too  severely  its  effort  to  preserve  its  family 
line,  acknowledge  the  lofty  pedigree  of  the  wily 
plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  and  the  century-old 
interests  it  has  at  stake. 

The  Importing  Trust,  your  Honors,  is  a  vast  in- 
terest, whose  octopus-like  body  rests  within  our  sea- 
board cities,  but  whose  thread-like  tentacles  have 
laid  hold,  with  a  more  or  less  deadly  grasp,  upon 
Tien  rl v  all  the  veins  and  arteries'  of  our  country. 
The  lives  and  the  happiness  and  the  stomachs  of  its 
members  depend,  primarily,  not  upon  this  defend- 
ant, American  Production,  but  upon  Foreign  Pro- 
duction, it  having  been  their  practice  from  time 
immemorial  to  inflame  the  people  of  this  country 
ncrainst  their  real  benefactor,  our  client,  American 
Production,  by  the  application  of  odious  epithets 
like  "favored  classes,"  "tariff  favorites,"  "infant 
industries,"  iu  the  earlier  days,  and  latterly  by  call- 
ing our  client  horrific  names,  such  as  "trusts," 
"predatory  wealth,"  "cormorant  corporations"  and 
the  like,  until  the  people,  blind  with  rage  and  with 
hate  against  their  only  hope  of  life  and  progress, 
have  arisen  and  torn  down  the  tariff-dike  and 


28 

allowed  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  to 
sit  as  sole  mistress  in  our  marts  and  gather  bound- 
less wealth  from  the  savings  of  our  people,  while 
millions  of  our  people  starved  on  every  hand  and 
the  whole  nation  languished  in  despair.  This  has 
been  the  course  of  the  members  of  the  Importing 
Trust  for  more  than  a  century;  the  same  course 
they  are  pursuing  now,  with  high  hope  of  the  same 
result  as  that  so  often  attained  of  old. 

We  say  it  in  all  kindness  and  with  full  remem- 
brance of  our  philosophy  which  excludes  the  no- 
tion of  malice,  but  we  say  only  the  truth  when  we 
declare  that  the  Importing  Trust  for  more  than  a 
century  has  been  for  us  in  this  land  a  giant  bird 
of  prey,  with  no  other  interest  here  than  to  plunder 
us  of  our  vitals  when  we  wax  fat;  and  when  we 
have  thus  been  levelled  to  the  earth  in  poverty,  to 
wing  its  way  to  a  distant  hill-top,  above  the  carrion 
stench  from  our  dead  workers,  and  await  the  rising 
of  a  fresh  race  of  workers  and  the  time  when 
American  wealth  has  accumulated  enough  once 
more  to  make  it  worth  the  while  of  this  same  foul 
bird  to  descend  anew  upon  our  homes  and  hearts. 

It  was  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust, 
your  Honors,  who  first  applied  the  name  of  "trusts" 
to  all  American  Production,  as  a  term  of  sweeping 
reproach  that  would  madden  our  people  to  hate 
their  own  and  cleave  to  this  predatory  alien,  the 
Importing  Trust.  Surely,  your  Honors,  there  is 
only  poetical  justice  in  turning  the  tables  upon  this 
monster  of  destruction,  this  prodigy  of  hypocrisy,  by 
also  calling  it  a  "trust."  Surely,  it  is  no  more 
than  just  to  apply  this  term  to  a  mighty  aggregate 
of  interests,  moss-grown  with  dark  and  damp  life, 
which  for  more  than  a  hundred  years  has  fought  at 
every  step  with  bloodthirsty  fury  the  progress  of 


29 

American  Production  on  this  soil.  American  Pro- 
duction, did  we  say?  Ay,  the  progress  of  American 
Civilization,  we  might  have  said;  since  American 
Production  for  American  Consumption  measures  to 
an  ounce  American  Civilization.  From  our  Colonial 
days  down  to  this  hour  we  have  thus  been  victim- 
ized and  betrayed  by  the  wily  plaintiff.  As  colon- 
ists we  were  merely  a  flock  of  sheep  for  fleecing  by 
the  wily  plaintiff,  which  used  every  endeavor  with 
the  English  King  and  Parliament  to  strangle  every 
sign  of  life  shown  by  our  client,  American  Produc- 
tion, on  its  manufacturing  side.  It  pretended  to  a 
divine  right  to  enter  t/ur  colonies  with  its  goods  and 
compel  the  tribute  of  high  prices  from  our  fore- 
fathers, who  were  forbidden  to  manufacture. 
Therefore  we  think  that  it  is  due  "to  this  wily  plain- 
tiff, the  Importing  Trust,  thus  to  say  that  much  of 
its  present-day  arrogance  and  its  puzzling  intoler- 
ance are  merely  heritages  from  a  triumphant  past, 
when,  with  it,  to  demand  was  to  receive,  to  com- 
mand was  to  be  obeyed.  What  wonder  that  lordly 
members  of  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust, 
still  regard  us  as  but  an  English  colony,  where  they 
may  while  away  a  portion  of  the  year  in  taking  from 
our  toilers  tolls  on  imported  goods,  only  to  go  to 
Europe  for  the  remainder  of  the  year,  to  loll  in  lux- 
urious carriages,  live  in  elegant  palaces',  and  spend 
their  Importing-Trust  profits  in  a  thousand  ways 
v>f  delight?  For  this  they  have  always  fought  our 
client,  American  Production.  But  American  Pro- 
duction would  not  down.  From  decade  to  decade 
it  struggled  on,  often  crushed  by  the  weight  of  the 
power  of  this  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust ; 
often  wounded  almost  unto  death  by  the  blind  folly 
of  our  own  people,  frenzied  by  the  stealthy  slanders 
of  tiro  Importing  Trust,  this  wily  plaintiff,  which 


30 

then  as  now,  hesitated  at  no  measure  for  the  de- 
struction of  its  adversary,  our  present  client,  Amer- 
ican Production. 

And  so,  your  Honors,  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Im- 
porting Trust,  has  continued  down  to  this  very  day, 
pursuing  its  happiness  by  the  destruction  of  Ameri- 
can Production,  at  every  point  and  in  every  way 
possible.  From  the  necessities  of  the  case,  from 
the  fact  that  it  is  a  struggle  as  between  life  and 
death,  we  do  not  believe  that  there  is  any  crime  at 
which,  as  a  concrete  proposition,  the  wily  plaintiff, 
the  Importing  Trust,  would  balk  to  work  the  final 
dissolution  of  American  Production.  It  disguises 
itself  in  every  way  and  makes'  use  of  any  and  all 
agents  to  accomplish  the  injury  of  our  client. 
When  in  its  war  against 'our  client,  after  years  of  use 
of  the  naked  blade  of  "Free  Trade,"  our  people  had 
come  to  look  with  horror  upon  this1  weapon,  as 
wielded  by  the  Importing  Trust,  the  wily  plaintiff 
look  care  to  conceal  its  real  instrument  of  destruc- 
tion by  giving  it  different  names,  among  which  your 
Honors  will  doubtless  recall  "Lower  Taxation," 
"Moderate  Protection,"  "Free  Raw  Materials," 
"Tariff  Reform"  and  "Revenue  Tariff,"  as1  some  of 
those  employed  by  the  wily  plaintiff  a  decade  or  two 
ago;  and  "Reciprocity,"  "Cuban  Treaty,"  "Relief 
for  the  Cubans,"  "Relief  for  the  Filipinos,"  "Reduc- 
tion of  War  Tariffs,"  "German  Trade  Agreement," 
"Stopping  the  Gathering  of  Gold  in  the  Treasury," 
and  "Tariff  Revision,"  as  some  of  the  later  subter- 
fuges by  which  the  wily  plaintiff  seeks  to  hide  the 
keen  edge  of  the  Free  Trade  knife  with  which  it 
cuts  the  throat  of  the  fat  bullock,  American  Domes- 
tic Market. 

But,  your  Honors,  at  the  present  moment  the 
wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  is  wielding 


31 

with  all  its  power  the  blade  which  it  calls  "Tariff 
Revision";  and  with  "Tariff  Revision"  as  a  watch- 
word and  the  cry,  "The  American  trusts  are  selling 
cheaper  abroad  than  at  home,"  it  is  trying  once 
more  to  drive  our  people  so  crazy  that  they  will  turn 
and  tear  down  our  tariff  dike  which  dams  out  the 
world's  surplus  goods  and  dams  in  the  world's  wan- 
dering capital,  and  let  in  the  deluge,  tie  the  hands 
of  our  workers  by  forcing  capital  to  seek  other 
scenes  and  send  them  all  supperles's  to  bed  and 
many  of  them  to  untimely  graves.  Ah,  your  Hon- 
ors, if  anything  could  justify  this  cruel  war  on  all 
the  workers  of  this1  country,  it  would  surely  be  the 
happiness  of  so  large  and  lordly  a  concourse  of  blue- 
blooded  commercialists,  as  that  which  makes  up 
very  largely  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust. 
Who,  then,  make  up  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Im- 
porting Trust,  your  Honors?  In  answer  to  the 
question,  we  say  that  far  and  away  its  larger  por- 
tion is  composed  of  importers  of  foreign  goods',  the 
fathers  and  grandfathers  of  many  of  whom  were  im- 
porters before  them,  in  whose  blood  has  come  to  be 
mixed  a  large  spilling  of  the  spice  of  aristocracy, 
and  who  look  with  proud  intolerance  on  whatever 
seems  to  lend  dignity  and  strength  to  our  client, 
American  Production.  These  people  control  the 
chambers  of  commerce  of  all  our  foreign-trading 
cities,  which,  under  the  tutelage  of  members  of  the 
wily  plaintiff,  pass1  resolutions  declaring  that  "the 
people  demand  an  early  relief  from  the  iniquities 
and  burdens  of  the  tariff  by  a  substantial  reduction 
of  its  rates";  or  that  "we  favor  an  immedate  revi- 
sion of  the  tariff."  These  importers1  live  in  the 
most  expensive  quarters  of  their  respective  towns, 
drive  imposing  carriages,  or  thunder  by  in  the  larg- 
est automobiles,  and  everywhere  sow  the  seeds  of 


32 

respect  for  "commerce"  or  "international  trade," 
showing  meanwhile  by  their  opulence  and  magnifi- 
cence of  living  how  profitable,  for  a  hundred  years 
past,  they  have  found  the  business  of  emptying 
American  savings  banks. 

In  addition  to  the  hereditary  and  other  importers 
engaged  directly  in  vulgar  trade,  there  is  a  wing  of 
the  Importing  Trust  which  is  not  vulgar  enough  to 
engage  in  trade,  being  made  up  of  Mayflower  de- 
scendants of  the  silk-stocking  variety.  These  peo- 
ple and  their  fathers  before  them  were  born  with 
golden  spoons, diamond  tipped,  in  their  tiny  mouths. 
They  are  blue-bloods  of  the  purest  ultra-marine. 
They  are  veritable  Plymouth  Rocks.  They  carry  in 
their  sacred  persons  all  that  is  hardly  worth  saving 
in  this  Republic.  Do  they  work?  Never.  They 
are  the  true  and  only  class  of  exclusive  "consum- 
ers" in  the  country.  When  the  newspapers  of  the 
Importing  Trust  say  the  "consumers"  must  be  con- 
sidered and  the  tariff  tax  abolished,  they  mean  by 
"consumers"  these  people  who  forever  "consume" 
and  never  "produce,"  these  proud  and  would-be 
aristocratic  people  who  consider  themselves  a  sepa- 
rate class,  to  serve  which  humbly  and  forever  is  the 
duty  of  the  "laboring  classes,"  by  which  term  they 
mean  all  who  are  not  rich  enough  to  live  without 
work  and  join  the  illustrious  body  of  "consumers" 
and  buy  a  pedigree.  Believing  that  they  are  the 
whole  show,  and  that  the  "laboring  classes,"  like 
the  birds  and  the  grass,  are  mere  inconsequential 
incidents  of  life  here,  they  also  believe  that  they 
should  have  their  work  done  at  the  lowest  price  pos- 
sible through  world-wide  competition  between 
workers;  therefore  their  allusions  to  the  "robber 
tariff"  and  "favored  producers,"  as  if  they  were  de- 
nied their  rights  when  a  tariff  dike  keeps  out  the 


33 

ocean  of  foreign  surplus  products,  the  odds  and 
ends  of  the  world's  bargain  counters  and  bankrupt 
and  fire-sale  stocks,  anxious  to  be  sold  here  at  worse 
than  auction  prices.  There  is  another  thing  they 
have  in  mind  also  as  their  right,  and  one  which 
would  be  re-established  by  a  "revision"  of  the  dike, 
and  that  is  retinues  of  servants  at  European  wages, 
which  would  be  theirs  if  the  dike  were  "revised," 
and  our  workers,  turned  out  of  our  factories  in 
starving  swarms,  should  beset  these  choice  "con- 
sumers" for  jobs  in  kitchen,  chamber,  cellar  and 
stable.  For  these  reasons  the  silk-stocking,  blue- 
blood  "consumers"  are  enthusiastic  members  of  the 
Importing  Trust,  and  on  every  occasion  root  for 
"tariff  revision,"  "reciprocity  treaties,"  "German 
Trade  Agreements,"  "Annexation  of  Canada,"  "an- 
nexation of  Cuba,"  "free  trade  with  the  Philipines," 
"war  on  the  trusts" — anything  and  everything  to 
make  their  high  living  come  at  the  lowest  price,  by 
exposing  American  workers  to  the  deadliest  com- 
petition. We  cannot  blame  them  for  all  this. 
Their  brain  cells  are  so  arranged  that  they  must 
ever  be  blood-suckers  and  never  blood-producers. 
But  the  rest  of  us  are  fools  if  we  do  not  understand 
them. 

Yet  another  wing  of  the  Importing  Trust  is  made 
up  of  college  professors  and  other  professional  men 
who  think  that  "revision"  would  make  their  broad- 
cloth cheaper  but  would  not  reduce  their  incomes. 
Having  never  "labored,"  in  the  vulgar  sense  of  the 
word,  they  know  nothing  of  the  horrors  of  indiscrim- 
inate competition  such  as  follows  "tariff  revision," 
the  lowering  of  our  dike  and  the  inundation  of  the 
country  with  foreign  surplus  products.  Some  of 
them,  it  must  be  admitted,  particularly  the  college 
professors  and  other  awfully  learned  men,  are  quite 


34 

frequently  the  high-thinking  devotees  of  the  time- 
wasted  cult  of  Free  Trade,  which  they  still  piously 
worship  at  a  shrine  wherein,  decades  ago,  the  last 
venerated  relic  crumbled  into  dust.  For  they  still 
whisper  of  Free  Trade  as  earnestly  and  as  rever- 
ently as  though  Adam  Smith  of  England  had  not 
been  dead  since  Adam  Smith  of  Eden  was  a  little 
boy  and  as  though  the  world  that  the  younger  Adam 
Smith  knew  had  not  been  so  transformed  economi- 
cally as  to  be  unrecognizable  by  him  if  he  returned 
to  earth.  It  is  a  pious  devotion  in  which  these 
monks  of  the  classic  shades  are  engaged ;  and  should 
we  blame  or  criticise  them?  Lo,  do  they  not  do  even 
as  we  ourselves  are  doing — seek  that  side  of  life 
which  grows  the  most  sugar  plums  and  the  fewest 
cacti? 

Yet  another  wing  of  the  Importing  Trust,  and  a 
very  powerful  one,  is  made  up  by  the  steamship 
lines,  notably  those  subsidized  by  the  German  Gov- 
ernment, either  with  cash  or  paternal  well-wishing. 
We  say  "powerful,"  because  back  of  the  German 
lines,  at  least,  stands  the  whole  diplomatic  corps  of 
their  home  Government.  Of  course,  they  are 
straining  every  influence  to  "revise"  our  tariff  dike, 
in  behalf  of  heavier  cargoes  to  this  country.  Again, 
who  could  find  fault  with  them  for  the  arrangement 
of  their  brain-cells?  Or  with  us  for  such  a  brain- 
cellular  arrangement  that  we  recoil  from  German 
Trade  Agreements  fomented  by  German  steamship 
lines  and  German  diplomacy  as  from  poison  rep- 
tiles. Should  it  leave  a  pleasant  taste  in  our 
American  mouths  to  realize  that  our  industries 
have  been  turned  over  to  the  tender  merices  of  the 
German  War-Lord  by  his  friend,  Herr  Trustbuster? 

There  is  yet  another  wing  of  the  Importing  Trust, 
your  Honors,  which  should  receive  our  careful  con- 


35 

sideration.  We  refer  to  that  wing  made  up  of  cer- 
tain politicians  who  join  themselves  to  the  Import- 
ing Trust  for  no  other  purpose  than  to  eat  out  of 
its  hand.  These  politicians,  by  some  strange  freak 
of  fortune,  belong,  generally,  to  the  Democratic 
Party;  and,  mirab-Ue  dictu,  very  largely  to  the 
Southern  Branch  of  that  party,  the  members  of 
which  join  in  the  assault  upon  our  tariff  dike,  even 
though  the  Sunny  South,  with  her  wealth  in  cli- 
mate, soil  and  mine,  and  her  marvellous  develop- 
ment behind  the  tariff-dike  since  the  Civil  War, 
still  needs  the  shelter  of  the  dike,  that  her  growth 
may  not  be  arrested  by  the  influx  of  tropical  prod- 
ucts— needs  it  for  her  cotton,  her  sugar,  her  rice, 
her  new-made  textile  mills  and  her  flourishing  foun- 
dries and  machine  shops. 

But  it  is  very  difficult  to  teach  an  old  Southern 
political  dog  new  tricks,  even  though  new  tricks 
mean  the  saving  of  his  life.  His  forefathers  were 
Free  Trade  Democrats  before  him,  and  he  can  never 
be  anything  else.  He  never  forgets  and  never 
learns.  Although  our  lovely  Southland  was  des- 
tined, under  a  tariff-dike,  soon  to  become  the 
wealthiest  and  proudest  section  of  our  country, 
these  old  politicians  of  the  Importing  Trust  would 
still  rule  her  life  through  a  tradition  which  scorns 
our  dike  as  a  robber  fortress.  They  are  stuck  in 
the  same  old  bog  in  which  they  were  hard  and  fast, 
"fo  de  wah";  and  until  they  are  gathered  home  to 
glory  they  will  continue  to  believe  down  at  Yazoo 
that  Jefferson  is  still  Allah  and  John  Sharp  Wil- 
liams is  his  prophet. 

Your  Honors,  we  fear  we  may  be  tiring  you  by 
this  long  analysis  of  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Import- 
ing Trust,  but  nothing  is  more  important  to  the 
issues  in  this  case  tlxan  to  know  the  motives  which 


36 

lead  the  enemies  of  our  client,  American  Produc- 
tion, to  raise  the  battle-standard  of  "revision"  at 
this  time.  We  have  not  yet  mentioned  the  wing  of 
the  Importing  Trust  which  is  perhaps  the  most  dan- 
gerous because  the  most  insidious  in  its  method  in 
attempting  to  wreck  domestic  industry.  We  refer, 
your  Honors,  to  those  American  citizens  who,  while 
claiming  American  citizenship,  make  use  thereof 
solely  for  the  purpose  of  hypocritical  claims  which 
they  hope  to  coin  into  gold,  even  at  the  price  of  seas 
of  tears  and  mountains  of  suffering  among  the 
workers  of  this  country.  These  people,  your  Hon- 
ors, are  they  who  purchase  forests,  mines,  and 
wheat  fields  in  other  countries,  and  these  pa- 
triots, to  get  the  benefit  of  Free  Trade  in  our 
domestic  market  for  their  alien  products,  press 
for  the  annexation  of  Canada.  We  also  have  them 
owning  sugar,  rice,  and  tobacco  lands  in  the  Phil- 
lipine  Islands,  where  they  are  also  projectors  of 
railroads,  hemp-mills,  and  other  manufacturing  in- 
dustries, under  a  cost  of  subsistence — which  is 
their  cost  of  production — infinitely  lower  than  we 
have  here  in  our  own  bleak  land.  And  these  Phil- 
ippine patriots,  under  the  lead  of  Secretary  Taft, 
the  great  champion  of  "revision,"  a  man  quite  unac- 
quainted with  our  client,  American  Production, 
and  the  terror  which  chills  its  spine  at  the  threat 
of  tropical  competition,  are  beseeching  the  Con- 
gress of  the  United  States  to  take  down  our  tariff 
dike  towards  the  Philippines,  and  so  compass  the 
death  by  starvation  of  thousands  of  our  wage-pro- 
ducers here.  But  these  members  of  the  Import- 
ing Trust,  the  wily  plaintiff  herein,  by  arousing 
pity  for  the  "poor  Filipinos,"  conceal  their  own 
interest  in  thus  "revising"  the  dike  towards  the 
Philippines;  just  as  American  promoters  of  Cuban 


sugar  plantations,  wko  were  also  members  of  the 
wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  concealed  their 
personal  interest  in  the  Cuban-treaty  outrage  up- 
on American  civilization,  by  spreading  in  the 
newspapers  fictions  as  to  the  suffering  of  the  "poor 
little  Cubans,"  and  by  pretending  that  unless  a 
"meed  of  justice"  were  doled  out  to  these  "poor 
starving  Cubans,"  in  the  way  of  a  gap  in  our 
tariff  dike,  they  would  starve  to  death  in  great 
numbers.  And  the  Importing  Trust  had  the  nerve 
to  say  that  we  had  shut  the  "poor  Cubans"  out 
of  the  Spanish  market  by  making  the  little  fel- 
lows free  and  were  about  to  kill  them  with  hunger, 
unless  by  giving  their  jobs  to  the  Cubans,  we 
killed  an  equal  number  of  American  workers. 
Yes,  your  Honors,  this  wily  plaintiff,  the  Import- 
ing Trust,  with  its  sly  hand  in  the  wage  fund  of 
American  workers,  stood  with  great  briny  tears 
in  its  eyes,  sniveling  about  the  hardships  these  Cu- 
bans were  enduring,  in  scenes  of  unheard  of  lux- 
uriance in  fruit,  vegetable  and  animal  life,  where 
yams  spring  up  over  night  and  where  a  two-cent 
cotton  pocket  handkerchief  makes  a  burdensome 
suit  of  Sunday  clothes,  wrhere  no  snow  ever  flies  or 
frost  ever  falls,  and  where  a  hut  of  palm  leaves  is  all 
the  native  needs  for  shelter.  Ah,  yes,  your 
Honors,  they  were  starving  to  death  on  a  bushel 
of  bananas  and  a  barrel  of  yams  and  a  wild  tur- 
key a  day  apiece;  and  Senor  Trustbuster  relieved 
their  suffering  by  giving  them  the  Cuban  treaty, 
which  ripped  a  gap  in  the  tariff  dike  and  put  a 
bonus  of  many  millions  a  year  in  the  pocket  of  the 
American  Sugar  Eefining  Company,  to  be  distrib- 
uted pro  rata  among  the  starving  Cubans — we 
dont  think. 
These  Cuban  exploiters,  members  of  the 


38 

Importing    Trust,    arc    they    who    slily    foment 
disorder  in  Cuba  and  fill  our  newspapers  at  times 
with  talk  of  its  annexation  to  the  United  States; 
for,  your  Honors,  that  would  mean  the  total  level- 
ing of  our  tariff-dike  towards  Cuba,  which  would 
be  much  better  even  than  a  Cuban  Treaty  which 
only  lowered  it.     But  no  greater  calamity  could 
possibly  befall  American  civilization,  your  Hon- 
ors, than  either  free  trade  with  the  Philippines  or 
annexation    of    Cuba.      For    all    the    world    is 
struggling  by  hook    or    crook    to    get   inside   our 
tariff-dike  with  its  goods;  and   all   the   world   of 
unfixed  capital  would    overflow    the    Philippines, 
if  wre  had  free  trade  with  them;  and  Cuba  also  if 
we  annexed  her;  just  for  the  privilege  of  free  trade 
with  our  market  here  on  the  main  land ;  and  these 
tropical  islands,  with  the  cost  of  production  not 
over  one-fifth  of  its  cost  here,  with  inexhaustible 
natural  resources  of  soil,  and  mineral,  and  forest, 
could  and  would  ultimately  produce  a  supply  of 
all  forms  of  goods  ever  thought  of  quite  sufficient 
to   meet  our  greatest  demand  here.     And,  your 
Honors,    with    Senor    Trustbuster   or    some    one 
selected  by  him,  as  for  instance  Mr.  Taft,  swing- 
ing the  cudgel  of  patronage  and  threatening  chas- 
tisement to  our  "insurgent"  Congressmen,  who  can 
say,  your  Honors,  how  far  the  wily  plaintiff  could 
not  go  in  securing  free  trade  with  the  Philippines, 
a  renewal  of  the  Cuban  Treaty,  or  the  annexation 
of   Cuba?     Senor   Trustbuster   "loveth   best  who 
tickleth  best,"  and  it  may  be  Mr.  Taft  does,  too. 
And  who  shall  say  that  the  Importing  Trust  would 
never  succeed  in  tickling  either  of  these  gentle- 
men to  as  profitable  an  effect  as  Baron  Speck  Von 
Sternburg  tickled  Herr  Trustbuster? 

Your  Honors,  it  may    be   ungracious    to    Herr 


39 

Trustbuster,  but  in  his  treatment  of  the  people 
of  this  country  in  his  Cuban  Treaty  and  his  Ger- 
man Agreement,  it  seems  to  us  he  has  acted  simply 
as  if  he  were  the  proprietor  of  a  great  estate,  with 
the  right  to  give  of  that  estate   as    much   as   he 
pleased  to  whom  he  pleased  and  to  whom  pleased 
him.     For  he  has  given  a  vast  slice  of  our  domestic 
market  to  the  Cuban  exploiting  member  of  the 
wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  and  another 
great  slice  to  his  flatterers  and  pretended  admirers 
in  the  German  Empire,  and  in  each  case  he  has 
entirely  ignored  our  Congress  as  much  as  a  Ger- 
man nobleman,  in  the  disposition  of  his  property, 
could  possibly  have  ignored  his  footman.     Does 
Herr  Trustbuster  ever  stop  to  think,  your  Honors, 
flint  he  is  the  servant  and  not  the  master  of  our 
people?    Does  he  ever  stop   to   think    that   these 
United  States  are  not  his  own  shooting  park?    Does 
lio  realize  that  our  domestic  market  is  our  civili- 
zation, our  domestic  life,  of  which  we  cannot  give 
away  a  single  dollar's  worth,  without  giving  away 
just  so  much  of  our  civilization  and  our  lives? 
Wo  regret  to  say,  your  Honors,  that  Herr  Trust- 
blister  makes  us  think  that  he  really  looks  upon 
our  people  and  their  sacred  interests  very  much 
as  he  might  upon  a  basket  of  fish  caught  in  his 
own  Oyster  Bay  or  a  bagfull  'of  game  shot  in  his 
own   woods,    which   ho   might  distribute   at   will 
among  his  favorites  at  court.     He  has  given  us 
away  to  the  wealthy  Tmporting-Trust  Cubans.    He 
lias  lavished  us  upon  his  favorites  of  the  German 
race.      And   rumor   says  that,  ere  long,  Monsieur 
Trustbuster  will  have  succumbed  also  to  French 
flattery  and  havf1  poured  us  out  with  equal  gener- 
osity over  the  industrial  reaches  of  la  "belle  France! 
And  will  he  crown  it  all  in  the  coming  Congress 


40 

with  scattering  us  as  a  handful  of  alms  over  all 
the  industrial  peoples  of  the  earth,  by  corraling  the 
"insurgent"  Congressmen,  in  his  own  strenuous 
way,  and  clubbing  Philippine  Free  Trade  through 
Congress,  and  thus  opening  us  to  Free  Trade  with 
the  whole  world  through  the  Philippine  Hole  in 
the  Wall?  How  long,  O  your  Honors,  how  long! 


V 


THE  UNION  OF  THE  WILY  PLAINTIFF,  THE  IMPORT- 
ING TRUST,  AND  THE  WILY  PLAINTIFF,  THE  EX- 
PORTING TRUST,  IS  A  MOST  UNHOLY  ALLIANCE 
FOR  THE  ASSASSINATION  OF  OUR  CLIENT, 
AMERICAN  PRODUCTION. 

May  it  please  your  Honors,  we  have  thus  traced 
as  nearly  as  we  can  with  our  present  data  an 
outline  of  the  various  branches  of  the  wily  plain- 
tiff, the  Importing  Trust;  and  we  now  proceed  to 
give  you  some  notion  of  the  origin  and  the  general 
nature  of  the  partner  in  sin  of  the  wily  plaintiff, 
the  Importing  Trust,  that  is  to  say  the  Exporting 
Trust. 

Some  years  back,  how  many  we  cannot  say,  the 
wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  took  unto  itself 
a  wife,  and  was  joined  in  the  bonds  of  a  most  unholy 
wedlock,  the  infatuated  maiden  who  consented  to 
the  union  being  none  other  than  Miss  American 
Special  Producing  Interests.  The  union  was  fol- 
lowed in  the  course  of  nature  by  the  birth  of  a 
lusty  boy,  whom  the  happy  twain  carried  immedi- 
ately to  the  High  Priest  named  "Foreign  Trade" 
and  had  christened  under  the  name  of  "The  Ex- 


i    41 

porting  Trust."  This  lusty  baby,  in  due  time, 
came  to  man's  estate,  and  though  the  offspring 
of  a  marriage  of  convenience,  and,  as  an  independ- 
ent proposition,  having  no  special  affection  for  its 
sire,  it  soon  began  to  assist  its  father  in  secret 
raids  upon  our  tariff-dike,  the  advantage  it  sought 
being  the  free  importation  of  "raw  materials"  to 
work  up  into  its  own  products,  for  sale,  primarily, 
in  our  domestic  market,  and,  secondarily,  in  the 
far-famed  "markets  of  the  world." 

One  wing  of  the  Exporting  Trust,  your  Honors, 
is  represented  by  certain  Massachusetts  manufact- 
urers, notably  those  of  shoes,  who  want  to  import 
"raw  materials"  free.  The  mongrel  blood  within 
their  veins  is  seen  in  the  fact  that,  in  order  to  in- 
crease their  profits  already  large  from  their  mar- 
ket here  behind  the  tariff-dike,  they  are  willing 
that  all  other  producers  in  the  United  States 
should  be  exposed  to  a  low  dike,  provided  the  dike 
shall  still  remain  high  over  against  their  own  fac- 
tories. For  example,  the  shoe  manufacturers  of 
Brockton  demand  that  all  the  farmers  in  the  coun- 
try should  lose  $3  or  $4  a  hide,  in  order  that  the 
shoe  manufacturers  themselves,  in  addition  to  the 
large  profit  secured  them  by  selling  goods  here 
safely  behind  the  tariff-dike,  may  have  the  profit 
which  would  come  to  them  if  they  could  make 
American  farmers  sell  hides  as  cheaply  as  they 
are  sold  in  the  world  outside.  In  other  words  they 
want  free  trade  in  what  they  buy  and  protection 
in  what  they  sell. 

We  also  mention,  as  belonging  to  the  Exporting 
Trust,  the  Minnesota  millers  who  enjoy  a  high 
tariff-dike  on  flour,  and  thereby  secure  our  entire 
home  market;  but  who  desire  "free  wheat"  from 
Panada,  so  they  may  add  to  their  tariff-profit  the 


42 

profit  to  be  made  by  compelling  our  wheat-raisers 
to  compete  with  Canada  for  the  custom  of  the  mil- 
lers of  Minnesota. 

We  might  further  mention  other  manufactu- 
rers, members  of  the  Exporting  Trust,  who  are  elo- 
quent for  "revision"  of  the  dike,  so  far  as  it  touches 
their  "raw  materials,"  all  of  which  are  the  finished 
products  of  their  sister  industries  in  this  country ; 
but  are  as  eloquent  in  declaring  that  so  far  as 
their  own  products  are  concerned,  the  tariff-dike 
is  now  none  too  high. 

We  particularly  desire  to  place  this  mark  of 
the  sorocide  on  the  brow  of  all  those  members  of 
the  Exporting  Trust  who  manufacture  patented 
articles  and  ask  that  the  dike  be  "revised"  because 
it  is  useless  to  them,  who  are  already  protected 
both  by  domestic  and  by  foreign  patents,  and  who 
are  the  only  real  "monopolists"  in  this  country. 
For  these  people  gladly  assist  the  wily  plaintiffs 
to  destroy  the  dike,  not,  your  Honors,  that  they 
may  "conquer  the  markets  of  the  world"  through 
free  "raw  materials,"  but,  God  pity  them! 
that,  they  may  force  American  wage-producers 
here  to  work  at  foreign  wages  in  making  these 
patented  goods  for  this  market,  in  order  that  these 
manufacturers  may  put  the  difference  between  the 
American  and  the  foreign  pay-rolls  in  their 
pockets.  The  fact  is  that  most  of  our  manufact- 
urers of  patented  things  already  have  plants  abroad 
and  so,  for  goods  to  be  sold  abroad,  already  have 
the  benefit  of  foreign  wages.  But  not  satisfied 
with  that,  they  wish  the  tariff-dike  "revised"  so 
the  workers  in  their  factories  here  will  be  com- 
pelled to  work  for  foreign  wages  also,  as  we  have 
already  said. 

Thus  these  members  of  the  Exporting  Trust  give 


43 

aid  and  comfort  to  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Import- 
ing Trust,  in  its  crusade  against  the  tariff-dike 
and  its  demands  for  "revision"  of  the  tariff;  and 
when  these  manufacturers  also  root  for  "revision," 
the  newspaper  claque  of  the  Importing  Trust  says, 
"Lo,  the  manufacturers  themselves,  these  infant 
industries,  to  protect  which  the  tariff -dike  was 
built,  demand  "revision."  Is  not  this  proof  that 
the  time  has  arrived  for  a  general  "revision  down- 
ward" of  this  barbarous  dike,  this  Chinese  wall, 
seeing  that  even  they  whom  it  was  built  to  shelter 
consider  it  an  evil?" 

Your  Honors,  when  we  see  the  depths  to  which 
our  own  people  will  dive  in  the  slums  of  selfish- 
ness; when  we  see  how  ready  human  nature  is 
to  eat  human  flesh,  American  manufacturers, 
who  think  they  have  no  further  need  of  protection 
to  absorb  into  their  economies  the  very  substance 
of  other  American  manufacturers  and  their  em- 
ployees, it  requires  all  the  philosophy  over  which 
we  have  command  not  to  wish  our  brain-cells  were 
so  arranged  as  to  make  us  approve  the  banishment 
of  these  flesh-eating  monsters  to  the  Cannibal 
Islands.  But  our  brain-cells  will  not  let  us. 


44 


VI 


THE    SOLE   RAISON    D'ETRE   OF    THE   WILY    PLAINTIFF, 
THE    IMPORTING    TRUST,  IS    THE    SPOLIATION     OF 
THIS  COUNTRY.     THE  SOLE  EFFECT  OF  ITS  OPERA- 
TIONS IS  TO  TAKE  FROM  AND  NEVER  ADD  TO  THE 
WEALTH  OF  THIS  NATION. 

We  humbly  submit,  your  Honors,  looking  back 
at  a  century  of  our  national  life,  that  the  wily 
plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  is  figuratively 
speaking,  a  sheep-stealer  and  nothing  but  a  sheep- 
stealer,  prowling  among  the  producing  flocks  of 
this  country.  It  has  not  even  any  relation  what- 
ever to  any  exchange  of  products  whereby  its  in- 
juries are  in  any  manner  offset.  Its  generic 
nature  is  that  of  the  freebooters,  marauders  and 
pirates,  its  real  forefathers,  who  but  a  short  time 
ago  swept  the  seas  for  plunder.  Its  sole  function 
now  is  to  skim  off  the  cream  of  wealth  from  the 
milk  of  industrial  activity  which  flows  from  the 
prolific  udder  of  this  industrious  nation.  It  differs 
from  the  old-time  pirates  only  in  the  fact  that  it 
snatches  the  wealth  of  a  whole  nation  at  once  in- 
stead of  that  of  single  merchantmen;  and  instead 
of  making  but  one  ship's  crew  walk  the  plank  at 
a  sitting,  it  puts  to  death  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  peoDle,  by  actual  starvation,  mental  anxiety, 
despair  and  suicide,  all  in  the  course  of  a  single 
raid  ni)on  this  country's  employment.  The  finan- 
cial havoc  which,  from  a  single  victory  over  the 
cold  sense  of  our  people  and  a  single  breach  in 
our  tariff  dike,  it  works  in  the  asrirregate  upon 
this  country's  wealth,  runs  into  billions  of  dol- 


45 

lars.  Ten  times  more  destructive  than  our  great 
Civil  War,  when  Northern  Greek  met  Southern 
Greek  in  deadly  combat,  is  but  a  single  triumph 
over  us  of  this  wily  plaintiff  in  its  battle  of  false- 
hood and  feigning,  through  which  alone  it  suc- 
ceeds. And  here  is  a  point,  your  Honors,  to  which 
we  call  your  most  serious  attention:  This  wily 
plaintiff  has  hit  on  the  trick  of  using  in  its  behalf 
the  diplomatic  corps  of  foreign  nations  and,  by 
the  devious  ways  of  diplomacy,  breaking  our  tariff- 
dike  which  dams  out  the  ocean  of  foreign  surplus 
goods.  Only  recently  it  secured  the  aid  of  the 
Great  German  War  Lord  and  his  cabinet  and  all 
the  power  of  the  Reichstag  to  force  Herr  Trust- 
buster  to  do  the  dirty  work  of  this1  wily  plaintiff, 
the  Importing  Trust.  And  be  it  said  in  shame  and 
sorrow,  Herr  Trustbuster  humbly  knelt  and  mur- 
mured his  vows  of  vassalage  to  the  Great  War 
Lord;  and  turned  over  to  the  Importing  Trust 
privileges  which  the  workers  of  this  country  will 
pay  for  from  their  savings  to  the  tune  of  not  less 
than  a  billion  dollars;  unless  our  Congress  shall 
call  Herr  Trustbuster  to  his  senses,  repudiate  his 
allegiance  to  the  German  Empire,  and  stop  the 
ruin  to  our  industries,  which  is  already  a  cloud 
black  and  broad  with  disaster  above  our  fields  and 
factories.  This  only  illustrates  further  what  we 
have  before  said,  your  Honors,  namely,  that  the 
Importing  Trust  is  merely  a  diplomatic  robber 
and  freebooter,  a  relic  of  the  ante-industrial  days, 
when  tribe  matched  tribe  in  theft  of  cattle,  corn 
and  maidens.  The  Importing  Trust  is  not  an  in- 
dustrial factor.  It  is  usurer,  thief  or  assassin, 
commercially  speaking;  and  when  it  fails  of  suc- 
cess by  its  own  dark  ways  here,  it  calls  on  an 
emperor  to  outmatch  ns  in  diplomacy;  which  is 


46 

as  bad  for  us  as  having   been   beaten    in    bloody 
battle. 


VII 


THE    OPERATIONS    OF    THESE    WILY    PLAINTIFFS    ARE 
AGAINST      THE     INTERESTS      OF      THE      CIVILIZED 
i  WORLD. 

Your  Honors,  all  civilized  nations  produce  all 
things  requisite  to  their  prosperity;  and  no  such 
nation  can  supply  any  other  such  nation  with  an 
article  the  like  of  which  either  in  form  or  effect 
the  latter  cannot  itself  produce;  and  as  surely  as 
the  sun  shines  and  shades,  no  organization  like 
either    of    these    plaintiffs    can    do    international 
business  without  injury  to  the  great  body  of  the 
people  concerned.     For  all  the  active  people  of 
any  country  are  producers  of  one  of  three  grades. 
Either  they  labor  for  wages  and  are  wage-produ- 
cers; or,  by  the    employment   of    wage-producers, 
turn  out  some  kind  of  property  to  sell  to  others, 
and  are,  therefore,  property-producers;    or    assist 
in  the  preservation,  transportation,  or  distribution 
of  property,  and  are  therefore  what  might  be  called 
"adjunct-producers."     There  are  none  other  than 
these  among  the  active  people  of  any  country,  who 
do  any  kind  of  work,  whether  of  hand  or  brain, 
or  both.     Even  doctors,  lawyers,  ministers,  bank- 
ers,   insurance    men,     telegraphers,     telephonists, 
blacksmiths,   tinsmiths,   plumbers,   masons,   paint- 
ers, carpenters,  and  clerks,  stewards,  porters,  and 
watchmen,  soldiers,  sailors,  and  errand  boys  fall 
into  one  or  the  other  of  these  groups,  every  one 


47 

of  them  dependent  upon  making  domestic  goods, 
real  or  personal,  that  is,  property-production; 
and  all  the  other  people  in  a  country,  unless  either 
too  young  or  too  old  or  too  sick  to  work,  are 
tramps,  which  includes  the  "consumers,"  whose 
case  the  Importing  Trust  so  eloquently  pleads  in 
its  arugment  for  the  substitution  here  of  foreign 
in  the  place  of  domestic  goods.  We  repeat,  prac- 
tically all  the  people  of  every  nation  are  produ- 
cers and  depend  upon  production  for  their  lives. 
The  more  meager  their  production,  the  more 
meager  their  lives;  the  more  abundant,  the  more 
abundant  their  lives  in  happiness  and  the  fullness 
of  civilization. 

It  follows  that  to  import  any  article  into  any 
such  country,  is  to  prevent  increased  production 
in  that  country  and  so  increased  civilization  and 
happiness.  For  either  the  exact  like  'of  it  or  an 
article  which  would  answer  the  same  purpose, 
could  have  been  made  by  the  producers  of  that 
country,  and  they  would  have  had  the  benefit  of  the 
increase  in  production,  which  would  have  in- 
creased the  demand  for  wage-producers  and  so 
have  raised  wages  and  have  caused  a  wider  dis- 
tribution of  wealth,  the  rich  becoming  somewhat 
less  rich  and  the  poor  somewhat  less  poor. 

But  that  is  not  the  whole  story.  To  import  an 
article  is  not  merely  to  prevent  domestic  produc- 
tion from  increasing,  but  to  make  it  decrease  by 
a  certain  definite  amount.  For  the  imported  ar- 
ticle meets  in  its  foreign  market  a  similar  domes- 
tic article,  or  the  ability  to  make  it,  wrhich  is  the 
same  thing;  and  either  the  domestic  article  under- 
bids the  imported  article  or  it  remains  unsold.  In 
either  case,  the  imported  article  makes  the  sup- 
ply greater  than  before  in  comparison  with  de- 


48 

mand,  and,  the  wages  of  the  wage-producer  fall- 
ing, instead  of  a  wider  there  is  a  narrower  dis- 
tribution of  wealth,  and  the  rich  become  somewhat 
richer  and  the  poor  somewhat  poorer. 

Suppose,  however,  your  Honors,  that  it  was  not 
the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  but  rather 
its  partner  in  sin,  the  Exporting  Trust,  that  had 
been  at  work;  and  instead  of  coming  into  the  coun- 
try, the  article  had  gone  out  of  the  country.  In 
that  case,  the  country's  supply  would  have  been  re- 
duced, demand  would  have  forged  ahead  of  sup- 
ply, and  the  pnce  would  have  risen  in  the  home 
market;  which  would  be  the  same  as  a  reduction 
of  wages.  Ever  though  the  export  of  the  article 
should  continue  and  the  increased  demand  for 
wage-producers  in  that  special  line  of  production 
should  raise  wages  to  their  former  level,  in  the  in- 
terval, the  wage  producers  would  have  had  the  loss 
occasioned  by  increased  prices.  But,  in  time,  the 
congestion  of  labor  on  fewer  occupations  would 
lower  wages  by  competition  among  workers  in 
those  occupations  and  so  offset  any  original  up- 
ward movement  of  wages,  arising  from  increased 
demand  for  a  special  product.  And  in  any  event, 
should  the  price  of  the  exported  article  rise  and 
wages  finally  rise  to  offset  the  price,  the  country 
would  have  gained  nothing,  but  would  have  merely 
balanced  accounts ;  and  the  net  result  of  the  opera- 
tion would  have  been  the  making  of  the  rich  mem- 
bers of  the  Exporting  Trust  somewhat  richer  and 
the  country's  wage-producers  somewhat  poorer. 

In  no  events,  your  Honor,  could  any  transaction 
of  the  wily  plaintiffs  bring  profit  to  the  nation  as 
a  whole;  and  their  operations  must  always  disturb 
wage-production,  to  the  greater  or  less  harm  of  all 
the  wage-producers  of  the  country. 


49 

Looking  at  the  matter  from  another  point  of 
view,  your  Honors,  these  plaintiffs  cause  a  loss  to 
the  nation  in  every  transaction  to  which  they  are 
parties,  their  operations  being  like  those  of  the 
pickpocket  who  steals  a  watch  and  pawns  it  for 
half  its  cost  to  the  owner.  For  they  pick  the  pocket 
of  the  American  wage-producer  of  some  opportun- 
ity to  work  and  pawn  the  swag  abroad  at  far  less 
than  its  real  value  to  the  original  owner.  If,  your 
Honors,  you  will  refer  to  your  Wealth  of  Nations, 
by  the  economist,  Adam  Smith,  you  will  find  that 
he  says  where  people  in  a  country  buy  and  sell 
among  themselves  it  is  twice  as  good  for  the  coun- 
try as  where  they  buy  and  sell  in  foreign  countries, 
because  when  the  trade  is  all  done  at  home  both 
ends  of  it  benefit  the  country  with  their  respective 
gains;  whereas  if  only  half  of  the  trade  is  at  home, 
the  country  gets  only  the  gain  in  that  half.  Now 
these  wily  plaintiffs  never  do  any  business  in  which 
both  ends  of  the  trade  are  in  this  country;  so  that 
whatever  they  do,  they  are  firing  away  abroad  half 
of  the  wealth  all  of  which  should  belong  to  us.  We 
think  Mr.  Smith  is  right  in  his  idea,  which  seems 
to  be  that  if  you  sell  a  steam-fire-engine  in  France 
and  take  an  automobile  in  exchange,  you  are  not  as 
well  off  as  if  you  had  sold  your  steam-fire-engine  to 
some  other  Yankee  in  exchange  for  his  automobile. 
For  the  half-French  trade  only  leaves  to  the  coun- 
try the  automobile,  while  the  all-American  trade 
leaves  to  it  both  the  automobile  and  the  engine, 
with  all  the  benefit  remaining  here,  which  could 
come  from  the  manufacture  of  both  machines,  bene- 
fit in  the  way  of  the  employment  of  wage-producers 
and  the  demand  of  their  wages  on  our  market.  To 
make  the  half-French  trade  as  good  as  the  all- 
American,  France  would  have  to  send  us  back  not 


only  the  automobile  but  another  steam-fire-engine, 
too,  without  extra  charge.  Of  course  that  is  silly  to 
suggest,  and  shows  how  silly  is  international  trade. 

But  the  worst  of  it  is,  your  Honors,  we  may  not 
get  even  the  half  of  the  trade,  because  instead  of 
our  sending  France  an  engine  in  exchange  for  an 
automobile,  France  may  refuse  anything  but  gold; 
and  so,  in  exchange  for  an  automobile  which  will 
soon  wear  out  and  never  inspire  industry  to  make 
wealth  again,  we  send  to  France  permanent  wealth, 
which  can  go  on  inspiring  industry  to  make  wealth 
to  the  end  of  time.  We  have  exchanged  a  living 
spirit  for  a  clammy  corpse.  We  have  paid  for  our 
automobile  with  a  section  of  our  producing  power, 
now  lost  to  us  forever;  and  whatever  the  size  to 
which  our  industrial  stature  may  grow  in  the  fu- 
ture, it  must  always  be  smaller  by  the  size  of  the 
section  thus  lost  to  France.  And  these  wily  plain- 
tiffs are  the  perpetual  agents  of  such  losses  as  this. 

"Ah !"  exclaims  counsel  for  the  Importing  Trust, 
"you  cannot  sell  unless  you  buy.  If  you  wish  oth- 
ers to  buy  of  you,  you  must  also  buy  of  them.  All 
international  trade  is  but  a  system  of  exchanges, 
in  which  goods  from  one  nation  are  paid  for  with 
goods  from  another  nation." 

Your  Honors,  this  falsehood  is  the  stock  in  trade 
of  these  wily  plaintiffs.  It  is  the  worst  one  they 
tell.  For  we  can  go  on  buying  of  foreign  nations 
without  ever  sending  them  a  pound  of  goods;  and 
they  can  go  on  buying  of  us,  without  ever  sending 
us  a  pound  of  goods.  We  need  only  stop  buying 
of  them  when  they  refuse  to  trust  us  any  longer; 
and  they  need  only  stop  buying  of  us  when  we  re- 
fuse to  trust  them  any  longer.  We  can  buy  of 
them  without  selling  to  them,  until  we  owe  them 
so  much  they  can  come  over  and  take  our  property 


51 

for  the  debts.  They  can  buy  of  us  without  selling 
to  us  until  they  owe  us  so  much  that  we  can  go 
over  and  take  their  property  for  the  debt.  It  all 
depends  on  how  long  credit  holds  out,  when  the  end 
will  come  and  the  sheriff's  sale  to  the  creditor  will 
close  the  chapter.  For  after  all  it  is  not  nations 
but  individuals  who  are  trading  with  each  other,  it 
is  just  the  same  between  dealers  in  different  coun- 
tries as  it  is  between  dealers  in  the  same  country. 
The  sum  of  international  trade,  is  but  the  sum  of 
the  tradings  of  individuals,  carried  on  as  individ- 
uals, governed  by  the  same  rights  and  made  equita- 
ble by  the  same  remedies  belonging  to  individuals. 

And  all  these  international  individuals  in  trade 
are  looking  for  the  specific  profit  to  them  in  each 
trade,  and  the  foundation  of  that  profit  is  not 
friendship,  "buying  of  you  because  you  buy  of  me," 
but  the  relative  cost  of  goods.  It  is  not  comity  but 
cost  which  governs  all  trade,  international  or  other- 
wise. It  is  not  because  we  are  kind  enough  to  im- 
port that  we  have  the  privilege  of  exporting.  And 
it  is  not  because  we  are  unkind  enough  to  export 
that  we  also  find  it  in  our  hearts  to  import.  The 
wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  knows  only  too 
well  that  there  is  no  logical  or  other  necessary  con- 
nection between  it  and  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Ex- 
porting Trust,  except  in  their  common  raids  upon 
our  tariff-dike. 

Both  of  these  wily  plaintiffs  know  that  each 
goes  its  own  way  in  foreign  trade  quite  careless  as 
to  the  fate  of  the  other.  Each  does  as  much  bus- 
iness as  it  can,  at  the  widest  margin  of  gain  it  can 
make,  and  puts  the  winning  in  its  own  private  box. 
And  we  repeat,  at  the  bottom  of  each  transaction  o'f 
either  of  these  plaintiffs  lies  the  mainspring  of  com- 
mercial action,  viz.,  relative  cost.  And  we  know 


52 

that  the  motto  of  these  wily  plaintiffs  is  this :  "Buy 
in  the  cheapest  and  sell  in  the  dearest  market;" 
and  that  they  are  strangers  to  the  motto ;  "Buy  only 
of  him  who  buys  of  you."  The  only  way  in  which  the 
wily  plaintiff,  the  Exporting  Trust  could  cause  us 
to  import,  would  be  to  sell  off  so  much  of  our  goods 
in  foreign  markets  that  prices  would  get  so  high 
here  that  the  Importing  Trust  would  make  money 
even  on  goods  brought  over  our  dike.  And  the  only 
way  in  which  the  Importing  Trust  could  make  us 
export,  would  be  to  fill  us  so  full  of  foreign  goods 
that  our  unemployed  people  would  be  so  poor  that 
they  would  work  for  wages  so  low  that  the  wily 
plaintiff  the  Exporting  Trust  could  send  goods 
abroad  in  spite  of  low  wages  abroad,  and  thus  coin 
the  bodies  and  souls  of  our  wage-producers  into 
gold  for  its  till.*  And,  your  Honors,  it  pains  our 
compassionate  brain-cells  to  think  it,  but  way  down 
in  our  hearts  we  believe  that  these  wily  plaintiffs 
when  they  practically  say,  "If  you  keep  on  export- 
ing you  surely  will  import;  and  if  you  keep  on  im- 
porting, you  surely  will  export,"  really  mean  that 
prices  will  get  so  high,  in  the  first  place,  and  wages 
so  low,  in  the  second  place,  that  goods  will  pass 
between  us  and  foreign  countries,  in  the  way  we 
have  said.  But  we  can  scarcely  understand  the 
sort  of  a  heart  that  could  be  so  cruel  as  to  deceive 
our  innocent  wage-producers  to  their  own  undoing 
in  this  way.  True,  goods  might  pass  in  this  way; 
but,  as  we  have  said,  not  because  of  any  agreement 
by  which  goods  should  be  paid  for  with  goods;  but 


*  For  over  two  generations,  Great  Britain,  by  Free  Trade, 
has  been  thus  coining  the  bodies  and  souls  of  her  workers  into 
profits  for  her  Importing  and  Exporting  Trusts,  the  fact  being 
that  the  members  of  these  Trusts  embrace  all  the  wealth  and 
nobility  of  the  British  Islands,  whose  natural  spoil  British 
workers  seem  to  be. 


53 

because  of  the  alternate  starvations  of  the  wage- 
producers  in  competing  countries.  And  because  of 
goods  passing  as  a  consequence  of  alternate  starva- 
tions, these  wily  plaintiffs  are  given  a  panorama  at 
which  to  point,  and  say,  "See,  it  is  just  as  we  said. 
There  go  goods  abroad  in  exchange  for  our  im- 
ports; see  how  goods  are  paid  for  with  goods!" 
Could  anything  be  more  perfidious,  your  Honors! 
( 1ould  brain-cells  ever  dip  to  deeper  depths  of  turp- 
itude than  that! 

What  is  the  object  of  this  cheating  of  our  wage- 
producers  by  these  wily  plaintiffs,  your  Honors? 
Why,  only  to  build  a  theory  of  international  ex- 
changes with  which  to  justify  their  doings.  The 
Importing  Trust  wants  to  be  so  it  can  say  to  Amer- 
ican wage-producers,  "If  you  take  my  goods,  which 
I  offer  so  cheap,  my  partner,  the  Exporting  Trust, 
will  take  the  goods  which  you  make  and  will  sell 
them  abroad,  and  so  increase  your  employment. 
For  if  you  import,  you  must  surely  export."  And 
the  Exporting  Trust  wants  to  be  so  it  can  also  say 
to  wage-producers,  "If  you  want  to  work  for  me 
making  goods  for  export,  you  must  help  me  break 
the  dike  in  order  that  we  may  import.  For  if  we 
export,  we  must  surely  import;"  while  it  hides  the 
fact  that  what  it  really  wrants  is  free  "raw"  wages 
and  "raw  materials"  and  a  greater  profit  for  it- 
self. 

We  have  proven  that  cost  and  not  comity,  your 
Honors,  decides  whether  there  shall  be  an  exchange 
of  goods,  and  so  whether  the  injury  done  us  by  the 
wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  shall  be  offset 
by  a  kindness  done  us  by  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Ex- 
porting Trust,  as  these  wily  plaintiffs  in  chorus 
claim;  therefore  the  question  whether  the  wily 
plaintiff,  the  Exporting  Trust,  will  thus  pour  oil 


54 

upon  us  and  bind  up  our  Importing-Trust  wounds, 
must  depend  upon  the  fact  whether  or  not  we  can 
produce  goods  more  cheaply  than  any  other  coun- 
try on  earth,  and  not  at  all  upon  any  mysterious 
connection  between  imports  and  exports,  and  vice 
versa. 

Now,  your  Honors,  if  we  remember  that  when 
the  dike  is  "revised"  it  must  be  "revised"  for  all 
countries  in  the  world  alike,  it  falls  out  that,  un- 
der a  "revised"  dike  the  country  we  would  have  to 
beat  in  cheapness  of  production  would  be  the  coun- 
try made  up  by  all  the  rest  of  the  world  outside 
of  our  boundaries,  including  Canada,  Cuba,  and 
the  Philippines;  and  it  does  not  seem  possible  that 
we  could  beat  all  this  great  tract  of  country  in  any- 
thing at  all,  except  in  a  few  things  perhaps,  and 
for  a  very  short  time,  before  the  world  had  stolen 
all  our  machinery  and  methods.  For,  your  Hon- 
ors, we  are  but  one-sixteenth  as  great  in  land- 
area  and  population,  and  therefore  have  but  one- 
sixteenth  as  much  natural  wealth,  labor,  and 
capital,  as  this  great  country  with  which  we  have 
to  compete.  This  fact  of  difference  in  size  alone 
should  make  it  seem  like  a  reckless  thing  for  us  to 
throw  down  our  barriers  and  jump  into  a  hand- 
to-hand  contest  in  trade  with  the  rest  of  the  earth. 
Why,  your  Honors,  this  great  outside  country  is  a 
very  busy  place.  People  there  everywhere  are  mak- 
ing all  sorts  of  things  the  same  as  we  are,  only 
more  so,  in  proportion  to  the  size  of  their  country; 
and,  just  like  us,  they  must  pile  up  a  whole  lot 
of  things  they  don't  want.  Why,  your  Honors,  the 
fire  and  bankrupt,  closing-out  and  winding-up 
stocks  in  all  that  great  country  ought  to  be  about 
as  large  in  volume  as  all  the  goods  we  use  from 
year  to  year;  and  we  know  that  if  it  was  our  mat- 


55 

ter,  we  would  sell  off  dog  cheap  and  at  any  price 
we  could  get  all  those  odds  and  ends  and  damaged 
goods  that  we  did  not  want  to  store  in  our  own 
attic.  And  what  is  troubling  us,  your  Honors,  is 
the  question  whether  or  not  this  heap  of  half  or 
quarter  price  goods  that  the  world  wants  to  get 
rid  of,  would  not  come  piling  in  here  over  our  "re- 
vised" dike  so  fast  and  so  furious  and  in  such 
volume  that,  no  matter  how  cheap  we  came  to  make 
things  here  ourselves,  this  bargain-counter  stuff 
would  drown  out  our  own  market  here  for  our  own 
goods  forever  and  a  day.  You  see,  your  Honors, 
with  a  pile  of  cast-offs  like  this,  the  sellers  would 
not  stop  for  price.  The  main  thing  would  be  to  be 
rid  of  it  and  if  not  at  one  price,  at  another.  For 
nobody's  bread  and  butter  depends  on  selling  such 
goods.  All  you  get  is  velvet.  Now  would  not  "re- 
vising" our  dike  just  make  of  this  country  a  sort 
of  catch-basin  in  the  valley  into  which  the  nations 
of  the  earth  could  just  pour  off  their  waste  pro- 
ducts in  this  way  and  would  not  such  waste  pro- 
ducts alone  be  enough  to  keep  our  markets 
crammed  until  our  wage-producers  were  starved  to 
death?  We  think,  at  any  rate,  your  Honors,  that 
it  is  worth  while  to  dream  a  little  further  over  this 
point  before  we  take  the  leap  in  the  dark. 

Then,  your  Honors,  before  we  do  a.  rash  thing, 
we  should  think  a  moment  on  the  point  of  whether 
or  not  our  whole  country  is  as  well  situated  to  do 
things  cheap  as  all  the  rest  of  the  earth  together. 
We  know,  when  we  stop  to  think,  that  the  real  cost 
of  what  a  man  makes  is  what  he  spends  in  mak- 
ing it.  And  what  is  that,  your  Honors'?  Is  it  not 
what  he  pays  for  the  stuff  he  works  on  in  making 
something  else  out  of  it?  But  that  stuff  cost  some- 
body else  to  make  what  the  somebody  had  to  pay 


56 

out  while  making  it;  so  that  our  workman's  "raw 
material"  costs  him  what  the  other  fellow  spent. 
Then,  in  addition  to  his  "raw  material,"  does  what 
he  makes  not  cost  him  what  he  spends  to  keep  him- 
self alive  and  well  while  he  is  making  it?  And  is 
not  that  his  food,  clothing  and  shelter?  Then  is 
not  the  cost  of  the  whole  thing  when  he  finishes  it, 
the  cost  of  the  food,  clothing  and  shelter  of  the  man 
who  made  his  "raw  material"  while  making  it, 
added  to  what  it  cost  him  for  these  same  things 
while  doing  his1  part  of  the  work?  And  it  is  not  this 
all  cost  of  subsistence,  and  is  it  not  right  to  say, 
Cost  of  subsistence  is  cost  of  production?  We  think 
so  at  least.  Now  if  cost  of  subsistence  is  what 
things  cost,  do  not  you  think,  your  Honors,  that, 
before  we  "revise"  our  dike,  it  would  be  well  to  find 
out  if  others  in  the  outside  world  cannot  live  just 
as  well  as  we  do  but  a  good  deal  more  cheaply? 
We  should  think  so.  Now,  your  Honors,  everybody 
knows  that  it  is  cheaper  to  live  where  the  sun  grows 
plenty  of  grass  and  other  vegetables,  and  lets  you 
stroll  around  a  la  Mother  Eve,  and  makes  a  bam- 
boo hut  all  you  need  for  shelter,  than  where  you 
have  to  grow  your  food  all  in  three  or  four  months 
in  the  year,  wear  heavy  clothing  most  of  the  time 
and  have  a  lathed  and  plastered,  battened  and 
calked  house  over  your  head.  Now,  your  Honors, 
looked  at  in  this  way,  what  parts  of  the  earth  are 
the  dearest  to  live  in  and  what  the  cheapest? 
Would  you  not  say  that  the  poles  of  the  earth, 
where  winter  blights  the  year  round  were  the  dear- 
est spots,  and  the  tropics,  where  summer  blesses  the 
year  'round  were  the  cheapest?  And  would  not 
you  say  that  subsistence  would  be  dearer,  the  near- 
er the  poles  you  were,  and  cheaper  the  nearer 
the  tropics  you  were?  That  is  the  way  it  seems 


57 

to  us,  at  least.  Now,  your  Honors,  the  highest  lat- 
itude is  at  the  poles  and  the  lowest  at  the  equator; 
that  is,  the  colder  it  is,  the  higher  the  latitude,  and 
the  warmer,  the  lower.  So  that  as  your  latitude 
increases  cold  increases,  and  as  your  latitude  de- 
creases, cold  decreases;  so  that  the  sun's  heat,  and, 
as  we  have  found,  the  cost  of  subsistence,  and  so 
the  cost  of  goods,  vary  directly  as  latitude  varies. 
Therefore,  we  can  say,  Cost  of  subsistence,  which  is 
cost  of  production,  varies  directly  with  latitude. 
This  seems,  your  Honors,  like  getting  down  to  the 
bed-rock  of  cost;  and  when  we  look  at  it  in  that 
way  and  realize  that  about  20,000,000  square  miles 
of  the  world's  land-surface  lies  in  lower  latitudes, 
and  therefore  lower  costs  of  production  than  we, 
about  14,000,000  square  miles  of  which  lies  in  the 
tropics,  or  in  the  area  of  lowest  possible  cost,  it  be- 
gins to  look  as  if,  taking  things  all  'round,  even 
mildly  to  "revise"  our  tariff  dike,  is  a  little  more 
than  risky,  if  our  continuing  to  live  in  this  happy 
land  at  all  is  a  thought  we  fondly  cherish.  The 
cards  are  against  us,  your  Honors,  doesn't  it  seem 
so  to  you? 

"Ah,"  says  counsel  for  the  wily  plaintiff,  "but 
we  have  the  most  inexhaustible  and  the  richest 
stores  of  "raw  materials"  in  the  world,  and  we  can 
beat  the  universe  on  that  account." 

Does  this  look  likely  to  you,  your  Honors?  Does 
it  look  likely  that  one-seventeenth  of  the  earth  has 
more  and  better  things  in  it  than  sixteen-seven- 
teenths?  We  would  not  insult  you  by  thinking  you 
think  so,  your  Honors. 

And  now,  your  Honors,  if  all  international  trade 
is  only  an  exchange  of  goods,  as  the  free  traders 
say ;  and  if  latitudes  lower  than  ours  can  make  all 
the  kinds  of  goods  that  we  can  make,  and  many 


58 

that  we  cannot  make  at  all;  and  we  can  make  all 
the  kinds  of  goods  made  by  higher  latitudes  than 
ours,  and  many  that  they  cannot  make  at  all ;  how 
can  we  exchange  with  lower  latitudes,  if  all  our 
goods  are  dearer  than  theirs;  and  how  can  the 
higher  latitudes  exchange  with  us,  if  all  their  goods 
are  dearer  than  ours?  In  a  word,  why  should  a 
lower  latitude  ever  buy  anything  of  a  higher?  And, 
if  it  should  prove  that  international  trade  is  not 
merely  an  exchange  of  goods  alone  but  one  of  cash 
and  credit  as  well,  how  could  there  be  free  trade 
between  all  latitudes  without  the  lower  latitudes 
soon  owning  the  higher — that  is,  without  the  higher 
latitudes  selling  all  of  themselves  to  the  lower  for 
products  of  the  lower? 

But,  suppose,  your  Honors,  the  learned  counsel 
were  correct  and  some  parts  of  the  world  could 
produce  some  things  more  cheaply  than  we,  and  we 
some  things  more  cheaply  than  they;  what  pledge 
have  we  that,  of  the  cheaper  things,  which  they  can 
make,  they  will  always  produce  a  sufficient  quan- 
tity, not  only  for  themselves  but  for  all  the  world 
less  favorably  situated;  and  will  always  keep  from 
producing  at  all  any  of  those  things  which  we  can 
produce  more  cheaply?  What  pledge  have  we  that 
they  will  not  corner  their  own  cheaper  product  and 
hand  it  out  to  us  at  a  price  so  high  that  we  might 
better  have  produced  it  ourselves,  even  at  a  higher 
cost,  rather  than  to  have  depended  on  their  con- 
stant industry  and  fairness?  And  if  we  keep  from 
nroducinsr  a  particular  thing  in  order  to  import  it 
from  a  cheaper  eountrv,  what  earnest  have  we  that 
the  crops  may  not  fail  tliore,  or  that  some  war  or 
other  circumstance  may  not  so  reduce  the  supply 
that  the  price  will  go  very  high  and  make  us  pay 
such  a  bonus  for  a  single  year's  supply  that  if  we 


59 

had  made  it  ourselves*  even  at  our  higher  cost,  we 
would  not  have  lost  as  much  as  by  having  trusted 
to  a  foreign  supply? 

There  is  another  point,  your  Honors,  right  in 
this  connection :  If  we  agree  to  the  rule  that  we 
are  only  to  make  what  we  make  cheapest  and  ex- 
change it  for  what  other  countries  make  cheapest, 
may  we  not  find  that  we  have  natural  stores  large 
enough  to  last  only  during  a  reasonable  time  even 
if  we  make  things  only  for  ourselves  and  not  for 
other  countries  at  all? 

If  that  is  so,  ought  we  not  to  make  some  things 
ourselves,  even  at  a  somewhat  higher  present  cost 
to  us  than  the  present  cost  abroad,  rather  than  get 
them  from  other  countries  in  exchange  for  articles 
made  by  us,  the  cheap  raw  materials  for  which  in 
our  country  must  one  day  be  entirely  exhausted, 
leaving  us  thereafter  at  the  mercy  of  the  rest  of 
1h<-  world  and  its  higher  cost  for  materials  the 
cheap  stores  for  which  we  had  so  foolishly  squan- 
dered? At  the  very  best,  is  this  plan  of  the  learned 
counsel  for  plaintiffs  anything  more  than  for  a 
postponement  of  relative  dearness  for  us?  And 
taking  a  long  look  ahead,  is  it  not  possible  that,  if, 
through  making  all  things  for  ourselves,  we  pocket 
a  present  loss,  we  may  later  enter  upon  a  perpetual 
gain  ;  and  that,  if  through  foreign  exchanges,  we 
pocket  a  present  gain,  we  may  later  enter  upon  a 
perpetual  loss?  Does  it  not  thus  seem,  after  all, 
your  Honors,  as  if  all  foreign  trade  were  a  gamble 
and  as  if  our  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust, 
and  its  ignoble  and  base-born  partner  in  sin,  the 
Exportinir  Trust,  were  gamblers  in  human  lives  for 
the  benefit  of  their  own  purses  alone? 

Another  point,  still,  your  Honors :  If  we  adopted 
the  plan  of  the  learned  counsel  and  made  only  cer- 


60 

tain  things  in  which  we  excel  in  cheapness,  would 
there  be  enough  to  do  in  making  only  those  things 
to  give  us  all  work  all  the  time?  For,  if  not,  that 
would  make  another  leak  in  the  bucket  by  which 
we  might  lose  a  great  deal  more  than  we  would 
have  lost  by  making  also  the  things  we  left  for 
other  nations  to  make. 

Because  the  total  cost  of  maintaining  a  nation, 
your  Honors,  is  made  up  of  the  costs  of  all  its  citi- 
zens, at  that  degree  of  consumption  which  will 
keep  each  citizen  in  the  most  vigorous  health.  We 
humans  are  very  complex  machines — aggregations 
of  cells,  your  Honors — and  to  make  our  income  of 
energy  balance  its  outgo  we  need  a  great  deal  more 
than  just  a  fixed  number  of  pounds  of  food.  We 
need  recreation,  diversion,  mental  expansion,  and 
a  great  variety  of  things  to  keep  our  brain-cells 
healthy  and  at  their  highest  point  of  action  respon- 
sive to  our  sensations  and  associations  of  ideas; 
and  the  cost  of  all  this  for  the  nation  cannot  fall 
below  a  certain  point.  Now,  your  Honors,  this  cost 
of  subsistence  is  the  burden  which  the  nation  has 
to  bear;  and  like  any  other  burden,  it  will  be 
lighter  per  capita,  the  more  hands  are  applied  to 
its  bearing.  That  is,  if  you  increase  the  number 
of  a  nation's  producers,  you  decrease  for  the  nation 
the  per  capita  cost  of  living.  If  you  decrease  the 
number,  you  increase  the  per  capita  cost.  There- 
fore the  policy  which  is  best  for  the  nation  employs 
the  greatest  number  of  the  nation's  producers  the 
greatest  number  of  hours  a  day  and  at  the  highest 
degree  of  efficient  effort.  Because  of  this  rule, 
your  Honors,  all  the  talk  of  the  learned  counsel 
in  which  he  has  so  highly  lauded  these  plaintiffs, 
sounds  like  an  argument  in  favor  of  haphazard 
gambling  rather  than  a  plan  which  reckons  with 


61 

all  the  conditions  necessary  to  a  nation's  highest 
good.  Your  Honors,  the  only  method  in  sight  by 
which,  with  scientific  certainty,  the  highest  good  of 
this  nation  may  be  assured  cuts  off  these  plaintiffs 
in  their  pack-peddling  and  gambling  and  makes  of 
their  members  producers  instead.  For  their  opera- 
tions through  foreign  trade  always  result  in  less 
employment  of  producers  here.  Because  on  the 
one  hand,  as  we  have  already  several  times  said, 
the  Importing  Trust  stops  the  exchange  of  products 
between  two  of  our  citizens  by  itself  supplying  the 
demand  on  which  the  exchange  depended.  This  de- 
stroys the  employment  of  the  producer  who  cannot 
sell  his  product.  It  increases  the  labor  supply 
without  increasing  domestic  demand  therefore,  and 
so  makes  a  labor  glut  which  means  idleness,  hun- 
ger and  decline  to  labor ;  at  the  same  time,  by  mak- 
ing men  idle,  it  makes  fewer  the  burden-bearers, 
and  therefore  increases  the  per  capita  burden  of 
the  nation's  subsistence.  And,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  Exporting  Trust  increases  prices  by  sending 
goods  abroad  and  thus  diminishing  supply;  de- 
creases wages  by  crowding  wage-producers  upon 
a  smaller  number  of  occupations;  assists  foreign 
countries  to  live  cheaply  by  the  exhaustion  of  our 
natural  stores;  and  generally  aids  the  Importing 
Trust  in  putting  off  that  industrial  equilibrium 
which  would  one  day  follow  the  cutting  out  of  these 
plaintiffs  and  the  direction  of  our  whole  domestic 
demand,  to  our  whole  domestic  supply. 

We  repeat,  your  Honors,  that  we  believe  that, 
by  no  hocus-pocus  of  these  plaintiffs,  and  by  no 
juggling  with  foreign  trade,  can  the  cost  of  this 
nation's  maintenance  be  less  than  that  which  it 
would  be  if  no  foreign  business  were  done,  and, 
the  entire  domestic  supply  being  absorbed  by  the 


62 

domestic  demand,  we  averaged  up  the  over-cost 
which  we  suffered  in  some  directions  with  the  un- 
der-cost we  enjoyed  in  others.  We  believe,  your 
Honors,  that  expert  people  could  ascertain  the 
average  cost  which  we  would  have  to  pay  by  rely- 
ing upon  ourselves,  and  that  this  average  cost  could 
he  denoted  by  a  number  related  to  some  standard ; 
and  that  this  index  cost-number  as  it  could  be 
called,  would  always  remain  the  same  as  long  as 
we  relied  on  ourselves  alone;  but  for  the  many  rea- 
sons already  given  in  detail,  would  increase  when- 
ever we  traded  abroad. 

Your  Honors,  the  more  this  matter  is  thought- 
fully weighed,  the  more  it  seems  that  the  only  ones 
\vho  would  not  be  injured  by  "revising"  the  dike 
downward,  would  be  these  plaintiffs;  and  that  if 
in  an  wise  they  were  benefited,  it  would  be  by  a 
corresponding  injury  to  this  nation. 

It  is  certain,  your  Honors,  that,  in  their  desire 
to  "revise"  the  tariff  dike,  and  let  in  the  ocean 
which  rages  to  lay  waste  our  fair  fields  of  industry, 
these  wily  plaintiffs  are  moved  by  the  lowest  mo- 
tives which  ever  have  birth  in  human  brain  cells, 
namely,  those  which  satisfy  appetite  by  taking 
innocent  human  life.  For  they  must  know  that 
in  a  deluge  which  follows  a  broken  dike,  there  is 
always  death  for  many  thousands  of  us;  whereas, 
on  the  contrary,  our  lives  are  safe  and  our  nation 
thrives  and  grows  greater,  the  higher  the  dike  and 
the  more  surely  it  keeps  out  foreign  goods.  For 
the  dike  enables  us  to  appropriate  for  our  own  civ- 
ilization and  progress  all  the  wealth  growing  be- 
hind it  since  there  is  no  way  for  wealth  to  be  spilled 
out  of  the  country  except  through  a  breach  therein. 
And  thev  must  also  be  aware  that  an  "unrevised" 


dike  means  a  more  wido  distribution  of  our  wealth, 
in  the  ways  we  have  so  fully  explained  before. 

What  we  say,  your  Honors,  may  be  summed  up 
in  one  short  sentence,  namely,  close  the  ports,  cut 
off  foreign  trade  in  both  directions,  and  prices  will 
fall  and  wages  rise  until  "trusts"  are  no  more  and 
all  American  capital  is  earning  the  same  as  that 
earned  by  capital  abroad.  And  that  means  the  wid- 
est possible  distribution  of  wealth  among  all  our 
people. 

But  it  is  against  this  very  distribution  of  our 
wealth  among  the  wage-producers  that  these  wily 
plaintiffs  strive  with  all  their  might,  when  they 
push  for  dike  "revision"  downward.  For  they  do 
not  wish  our  wage-earners  also  to  become  property- 
producers,  as  the  latter  are  rapidly  becoming  from 
their  economies  and  savings,  which  now  figure 
nearly  four  billions.  They  do  not  want  property- 
producers  here  to  become  so  numerous  that  prices 
will  fall  so  low  that  the  plaintiffs  will  no  longer 
have  any  excuse  to  cry  out  that  the  "trusts"  are 
selling  more  cheapy  abroad  than  at  home ;  but  they 
wish  the  gathering  wealth  of  our  wage-producers 
to  be  scattered  again  to  the  four  winds  of  heaven, 
in  order  that  they  themselves  may  still  make  for- 
tunes in  brokerages  and  commissions  on  foreign 
trade  with  us.  You  see,  therefore,  your  Honors, 
that  our  tariff  dike  is  a  nation-building  device, 
while  the  plaintiffs  are  a  nation-destroying  com- 
bination, one  which  pursues  such  a  course  that,  if 
it  were  not  ever  and  anon  checked  by  our  more 
enlightened  people,  our  end  would  be  final  impov- 
erishment, the  reversion  of  our  civilization  to  the 
most  primitive  conditions,  and  the  ownership  of 
all  our  land  by  a  handful  of  grandees.  Is  it  not 
strange,  your  Honors,  that  the  brain-cells  of  so 


many  of  our  people  are  arranged  so  peculiarly  that 
such  a  combination  is  able  from  time  to  time  to 
make  this  country  "revise"  its  dike  and  set  us  all 
on  the  down-hill  road?  But  so  it  is,  your  Honors, 
and  alas,  and  alack,  for  the  slip-shod  arrangement 
of  brain-cells  under  so  many  skulls !  For  it  would 
be  far  better  for  us  if  our  beloved  land  were  invaded 
by  a  barbarian  army  of  millions,  armed  with  all 
the  most  terrible  engines  of  war,  than  that  our 
tariff-dike  were  thus  "revised"  by  these  wily  plain- 
tiffs. We  would  oust  the  barbarians  quicker,  bury 
our  dead,  rebuild  our  cities,  strengthen  our  fort- 
resses and  our  defending  armies,  and,  knowing  by 
what  we  had  been  hit,  be  wise  for  the  future.  But 
these  wily  plaintiffs,  appealing  through  their  alien 
press  to  the  basest  passions  of  our  people,  inflict  a 
more  grievous  injury  than  that  possible  by  an  armed 
invasion,  and  yet  cover  their  work  with  such  hy- 
pocrisy and  mysticism  that  half  of  our  wounded 
people  never  know  by  whom  they  were  struck  and 
very  soon  think  the  basest  thoughts  of  these  wily 
plaintiffs  after  them  once  more  and  assist  to  rouse 
the  dikebusting  fury  that  sleeps  in  the  words  "The 
trusts  sell  more  cheaply  abroad  than  at  home!" 

Ah,  your  Honors,  why  do  we  not  choose  the  more 
intelligent  part,  which  is  to  quit  stealing  the  sheep 
of  others  and  to  stop  others  stealing  ours?  Why 
do  we  not  cut  off  entirely  this  barbarous  matching 
of  wits  against  wits,  this  playing  of  our  national 
life  against  the  lives  of  other  nations?  For  in  this 
day  and  generation,  all  foreign  trade,  is  spolia- 
tion. It  is  the  robbing  of  wage-producers  of  their 
opportunities  to  produce  wages,  and  therefore 
their  food,  clothing  and  shelter.  To  sell  our  goods 
abroad  is  for  us  to  despoil  the  wage-producers  of 
the  country  in  which  we  sell.  While  for  any  other 


65 

country  to  sell  us  its  goods,  is  for  that  country  to 
despoil  wage-producers  here.  Because,  as  we  said 
in  the  beginning  of  this  head  of  our  argument,  all 
civilized  countries  are  now  able  to  produce  all 
things  necessary  for  their  inhabitants;  and  for  its 
highest  development,  every  country  through  its 
own  wage-producers,  needs  to  produce  every  thing 
required  to  supply  the  wants  of  its  people.  This 
is  so  from  the  fact  that  the  more  opportunities 
people  have  to  work  for  others,  the  greater  the  field 
of  their  action,  and  their  means  of  reaching  the 
farthest  goal  reachable  by  them.  Not  only  so,  but, 
by  foreign  trade  to  disperse  these  opportunities  is 
to  waste  in  idleness  the  energies  of  your  workmen 
at  home;  energies  for  the  existence  of  which  the 
country  pays;  for  either  it  must  support  its  idle 
workmen  from  its  poor  fund,  or  let  them  die  of 
starvation  and  so  lose  their  energies  altogether. 
On  the  other  hand,  to  give  its  own  wage-producers 
all  the  opportunities  to  work  made  by  the  wants 
of  the  nation  is  to  give  to  them  all  they  are  entitled 
to  have ;  for  no  nation  is  entitled  to  greater  wealth 
than  that  developed  in  supplying  its  own  wants. 

As  we  have  said,  your  Honors,  there  is  no  causal 
relationship  between  the  amount  of  business  done 
respectively  by  the  wily  plaintiffs.  But  even  if 
there  were,  no  system  of  foreign  exchange  could 
help  a  nation  to  greater  prosperity  as  a  nation  than 
it  could  help  itself  to  by  simply  supplying  all  its 
own  wants.  For,  as  we  have  said  before,  any  profit 
from  foreign  trade  would  go  to  these  wily  plain- 
tiffs alone,  the  net  result  to  our  wage-earners  be- 
ing a  loss.  For,  inasmuch  as  foreign  trade  must 
be  in  goods  the  like  of  which  either  by  duplication 
or  substitution,  we  produce  at  home,  for  us  to  buy 
abroad  is  to  withhold  from  production  at  home  and 


66 

congest  our  wage-producers  upon  a  narrower  field 
of  work  and  so  cause  wages  to  fall;  and  this,  your 
Honors,  is  to  make  but  one  industry  grow  where 
more  than  one  grew  before.  But  on  the  contrary, 
the  more  kinds  of  things  we  make,  the  more  wealthy 
our  people  must  become,  because  that  gives  more 
chances  to  work  and  employs  workers  in  doing 
those  very  things  they  can  do  the  easiest  and  best 
and  therefore  with  the  greatest  returns.  But  not 
only  so,  your  Honors,  the  diversification  of  indus- 
tries diversifies  the  objects  of  exchange;  so  that  the 
wage-producer,  in  the  wages  which  he  receives  for 
doing  a  single  thing,  has  the  equivalent  of  many 
things,  of  which,  by  proxy,  he  is  himself  the  pro- 
ducer and,  by  virtue  of  his  wages,  the  owner.  This 
is  to  fill  lives  fuller  and  give  a  higher  development 
to  our  citizenship ;  for  the  wage-producer  works  for 
no  other  purpose  than  to  be  able  to  exchange  his 
wages  for  goods. 

And  right  here,  your  Honors,  we  wish  to  refer 
again  to  our  remark  of  a  moment  ago,  when  we 
said  that  foreign  trade  could  not  possibly  give  a 
nation  greater  prosperity  than  would  come  from 
the  nation's  supplying  its  own  wants  by  the  em- 
ployment of  its  own  wage-producers.  We  repeat 
and  confirm  that  remark  and  say  that,  with  the  na- 
tion's demand  confined  to  its  own  supply,  its  wage- 
producers  must  exchange  their  wages  for  practic- 
ally the  total  volume  of  goods  they  have  made  and 
that  volume  of  goods  must  surely  be  large  enough 
to  go  all  round;  for  the  wage-producers  would  nat- 
urally be  employed  at  least  to  supply  their  own 
demand.  Even  if  owing  to  a  more  bleak  climate 
or  a  less  productive  soil,  poorer  mines,  and  scantier 
forests,  a  wage-producer  was  compelled  to  give  up 
in  making  an  article  more  strength  than  that  given 


67 

up  doing  the  same  work  by  another  wage-producer 
in  a  better  country,  the  former  wage-producer,  to 
prevent  his  country's  prosperity  from  being  made 
less,  would  still,  by  the  sale  of  his  product,  have  to 
get  back  the  strength  he  had  expended  under  his 
poorer  circumstances.  Because,  suppose  his  coun- 
try, instead  of  taking  his  product  at  the  price  of  his 
energy  left  it  on  his  hands  and  imported  a  similar 
product  at  a  lower  price;  or  even  suppose  his  coun- 
try dickered  with  him,  and,  because  it  could  buy 
more  cheaply  abroad,  compelled  him  to  sell  his 
product  at  a  lower  price  than  would  return  his 
outlay  of  strength,  would  this  not  reduce  the  pros- 
perity of  your  unfortunate  wage-producer  at  least 
as  much  at  it  increased  the  prosperity  of  him  who 
thus  got  a  lower  price?  What  would  be  true  of 
one  wage-producer  would  be  true  of  any  number; 
and  therefore  it  would  be  true  of  the  entire  coun- 
try, and  our  declaration  as  to  the  country's  pros- 
perity is  true,  that  it  cannot  be  increased  through 
buying  anything  abroad.  And  inasmuch  as  the 
country  must  feed  or  starve  its  unemployed  wage- 
producers,  it  will  be  easily  seen,  your  Honors,  that 
the  rule  upon  which  counsel  for  the  wily  plaintiffs 
laid  so  much  stress,  viz.,  buy  in  the  cheapest  and 
sell  in  the  dearest  market  the  world  over,  is  a  rule 
which  would  put  money  in  the  pockets  of  the  wily 
plaintiffs  by  taking  it  from  the  pocket  of  the  coun- 
try, and  would  therefore  make  the  rich  richer  and 
the  poor  poorer. 

Changing  the  form  of  their  statement,  learned 
counsel  say,  "Exchange  what  you  can  make  the 
cheapest  for  what  other  countries  can  make  the 
cheapest,  so  that  you  can  live  with  the  lightest 
labor;"  and  by  that  saying  they  interest  those 
whose  brain-cells  are  few  in  number  and  simple  in 


68 

arrangement.  But  the  impression  left  by  this 
plausible  dictum  is  full  of  fallacies.  It  impresses 
him  of  the  simple  brain-cells  that  an  exchange  be- 
tween two  nations  is  like  an  exchange  between  two 
individuals.  For  instance,  Farmer  A  grows  fine 
potatoes  but  poor  pumpkins;  while  Farmer  B 
grows  fine  pumpkins  but  poor  potatoes;  therefore, 
let  these  farmers  exchange  potatoes  for  pumpkins 
and  both  have  large  fine  fruit.  Even  in  a  case 
like  this  Farmer  A  might  get  a  chance  to  pinch 
Farmer  B  out  of  the  profit;  or  Farmer  B  to  do  the 
same  to  Farmer  A ;  and  both  farmers  might  better 
grow  potatoes  and  pumpkins;  but  even  if  such  a 
deal  were  profitable  between  individuals,  it  might 
be  otherwise  between  nations.  Nations  are  like 
large  families  who  have  to  feed  their  children  any 
way;  and  if  one  nation  contracted  to  grow  all 
pumpkins  to  exchange  with  another  nation  that 
grew  all  potatoes,  it  might  find  that  half  its  work- 
ers could  raise  pumpkins  enough  for  both  nations; 
yet,  under  the  contract,  the  other  half  of  its  work- 
ers could  not  raise  such  potatoes  as  they  could ;  and 
they  would  have  to  be  supported  in  idleness.  And 
what  would  be  gained?  That  is  what  happens 
when  a  low  tariff-dike  snuffs  out  a  great  industry 
that  aforetime  was  booming.  Plaintiff's  counsel 
say,  "Set  the  idle  workers  at  something  else."  That 
is  against  the  contract;  but  suppose  you  tried  it 
and  the  workers  had  been  trained  to  a  difficult 
trade  now  wiped  out,  might  not  the  loss  of  time 
and  strength  in  teaching  them  a  new  trade  more 
than  eat  up  your  profit?  Who  arranges  this  high- 
daddy  "international  exchange"  so  it  wont  leak  a 
drop? 


VIII 

IN  ORDER  THAT  THESE  WILY  PLAINTIFFS  MAY  FLOUR- 
ISH, WAGE-PRODUCERS  THE  WORLD  OVER  MUST 
DIE. 

Your  Honors,  we  trust  you  will  further  bear 
with  us  and  our  brain-cells  while  we  call  your  at- 
tention again  to  the  fact  that  these  wily  plaintiffs 
flourish  best  where  their  operations  are  most  cer- 
tainly fatal  to  the  lives  of  wage-producers;  that 
is,  where  the  fall  of  their  victims  from  high  to 
low  wages,  from  high  to  low  living,  is  farthest. 
Your  Honors,  both  of  these  wily  plaintiffs  are 
loaded  at  both  ends  for  destruction.  The  Import- 
ing Trust  flourishes  here  by  causing  our  wage- 
producers  to  bid  for  their  lives  against  the  poor- 
est-paid labor  in  the  world;  while,  being  an  Ex- 
porting Trust  abroad,  in  order  to  find  goods  there 
to  continue  its  work  of  death  here,  it  causes  wage- 
producers  there  to  rush  to  narrower  fields  of  em- 
ployment and  so  cut  down  their  own  wages.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  Exporting  Trust  reverses  the 
order  of  destruction.  Here,  if  successful,  it  con- 
gests on  specific  employments  our  wage-producers 
who  then  tumble  over  each  other  for  jobs  in  those 
employments,  and  plump  down  go  their  wages; 
and,  abroad,  our  Exporting  Trusty  being  there 
an  Importing  Trust,  makes  wage-producers  tem- 
porarily compete  for  employment  against  our  su- 
perior machinery  and  methods  here  in  specific 
lines ;  and  so  the  work  of  death  of  these  wily  plain- 
tiffs goes  merrily  on.  Thus  the  entire  business  of 


70 

these  wily  plaintiffs  is  to  make  two  competing 
groups  of  wage-producers  see  who  can  survive  'on 
the  least  food,  wear  the  poorest  clothes,  and  live 
in  the  poorest  houses;  thus  cutting  off  the  lives  of 
the  weak,  and  making  weaker  the  lives  of  the  strong 
Moreover  they  go  forth  to  all  climes  and  coun- 
tries in  search  of  the  best  chance  to  destroy  wage- 
producers  in  this  way,  often  starving  to  death 
wage-producers  in  some  dear  climate  by  forcing 
them  to  work  for  the  same  wages  as  wage-pro- 
ducers in  a  cheap  climate. 

Yes,  your  Honors,  these  wily  plaintiffs  search 
the  earth  over  for  places  where  goods  are  made  at 
the  lowest  costs ;  in  order  to  search  the  earth  again 
and  find  where  similar  goods  cost  the  most  to 
produce;  and  when  such  places  are  found  they 
sell  out  of  their  jobs  and  their  lives  the  workers 
who  make  goods  at  the  higher  cost.  Verily,  in  order 
tha.t  these  wily  plaintiffs  may  flourish,  wage-pro- 
ducers the  world  over  must  die.  This  foreign 
trade  is  the  most  destructive  and  heartless  pur- 
suit in  which  human  beings  can  engage;  and  yet 
the  brain-cells  of  these  wily  plaintiffs  seem  well 
fitted  for  the  job. 


IX 


THESE     WILY     PLAINTIFFS     PREVENT     THE     DAWNING 
FOB  THE  WORLD  OF  A  BRIGHTER  AND  HAPPIER  DAY. 

For  wage-producers,  life  is  indeed  made  hard 
and  barren,  your  Honors,  a  losing  game,  so  to 
speak,  where  these  wily  plaintiffs  have  free 
course.  But  on  the  other  hand  what  an  oppor- 


71 

tunity  to  live  in  the  broadest  and  richest  sense 
is  afforded  by  a  tariff-dike  and  dam  which  compel 
domestic  demand  to  look  alone  to  domestic  supply ; 
and  domestic  supply  to  look  alone  to  domestic  de- 
mand. This  makes  an  endless  chain  of  prosperity. 
Every  rising  sun  sees  the  country's  whole  demand 
carried  to  the  country's  domestic  market  to  ab- 
sorb the  accumulated  supply  and  leave  there  a 
vacuum  into  which  may  flow  another  greater  sup- 
ply. For,  your  Honors,  the  secret  of  our  pros- 
perity behind  a  high  tariff -dike  is1  the  fact  that 
people's  wants  multiply  with  their  satisfying. 
When  there  is  any  hope  of  their  fulfillment,, 
human  ambitions  for  better  things  are  never  still. 
Wants  multiply  with  the  means  of  filling  them. 
When  the  wage-producer  is  steadily  at  work  and 
wages  are  high,  he  not  only  provides  his  family 
with  what  he  can  pay  cash  for;  but  also  pianos 
and  music  lessons  for  his  girls,  books,  ponies  and 
bicycles  for  his  boys,  and  better  and  more  clothing 
for  his  whole  family,  to  say  nothing  of  educa- 
tion in  its  various  forms1  for  his  young  people, 
for  which  he  may  to  some  extent  mortgage  his 
expectation  of  the  future;  and  when  the  tariff- 
dike  and  dam  are  high,  he  does  not  trust  the  fu- 
ture in  vain ;  for  his  rising  wages  see  him  through 
his  highest  hopes.  And  so,  your  Honors,  indus- 
tries multiply  and  expand  to  meet  the  multiply- 
ing wants  of  busy  wage-producers;  and  the  result 
is  a  boom  of  prosperity. 

Why,  your  Honors1,  it  is  all  so  easy  to  under- 
stand! A  single  man's  wages  act  upon  our  mar- 
ket like  hydraulic  pressure,  which  multiplies  the 
unit  of  pressure  many  fold;  and  a  single  oppor- 
tunity to  exchange  furnished  the  market  by  the 
wages  of  a  single  wage-producer  clears  a  path  for 


TV 

i  - 


a  series  of  exchanges,  each  exchange  doing  aar 
much  good  to  others  as  the  first  did  to  the  wage- 
producer  to  whom  the  tariff-dike  gave  a  good  job. 
And  thus,  your  Honors,  the  growth  of  desires  with 
the  hope  of  satisfaction  will  keep  on  forever  behind 
the  dike  and  the  dam ;  and,  with  growth  in  the  num- 
ber of  those  who  assist  in  production  and  thus  by 
their  wages  put  hyrdaulic  pressure  on  demand, 
will  keep  the  demand  for  wage-producers  greater 
than  the  supply;  so  that  wages  will  keep  on  ris- 
ing, in  spite  of  growing  population  and  what 
would  otherwise  be  greater  competition  between 
wage-producers;  until  wealth  is  scattered  widely 
among  us  all  so  that  property-producers,  besides1 
interest  on  their  capital,  will  get  only  about  the 
same  wages  for  their  trouble  in  the  work  of  pro- 
duction as  those  received  by  the  wage-producers 
in  their  shops. 

And  here,  your  Honors,  we  observe  a  derisive 
smile  on  the  faces  of  counsel  for  the  wily  plain- 
tiffs and  anticipate  their  rejoinder.  "What!"  they 
will  say,  "Build  a  Chinese  Wall  around  the  coun- 
try! On  the  one  hand  allow  the  whole  people 
to  be  choked  to  death  by  the  'trusts,'  who  will 
'screw  up'  prices  to  the  strangling  point!  And 
on  the  other  hand,  allow  the  labor  unions  to  'screv 
up'  wages  until  business  comes  to  a  standstill ! 
Allow  the  'consumer'  to  be  robbed  and  murdered 
outright  by  such  brigands  as1  these!"  Our  reply 
is  that  the  tariff-dike  does  not  keep  out  of  this 
country  capital  on  the  one  hand  or  labor  on  the 
other;  and  just  as  long  as  prices  are  higher  than 
a  fair  profit  requires,  just  so  •  long  will  foreign 
capital  come  in  to  take  its  chance  at  the  same 
blackberry  bush  which  the  "trusts"  are  stripping. 
And  just  so  long  as  American  wages  will  buy  more 


73 

here  behind  the  dike  than  foreign  wages  will  buy 
in  other  countries,  just  so  long  will  there  be  a 
stream  of  immigration,  now  over  a  million  souls 
a  year,  bringing  in  workers  from  all  over  the  world 
to  share  wages  in  this  country.  Inflowing  capi- 
tal will  keep  down  prices;  and  inflowing  men  and 
women  will  make  wages  reasonable.  But  capital 
comes  by  millions1  through  a  single  cable  message; 
while  the  coming  of  labor  drags1  slowly  through 
the  years;  so  capital  will  compete  with  capital 
more  strongly  than  labor  with  labor;  and  prices 
will  fall  while  wages  rise  and,  in  the  way  we  have 
said,  wealth  will  reach  a  wider  and  wider  distri- 
bution. 

And  why  is  not  our  plan,  your  Honors,  the  best 
one  to  cause  the  dawning  on  the  world  of  a  bright- 
er and  happier  day?  By  it  are  we  not  now  in- 
viting here  all  the  peoples'  of  the  earth?  As  we 
have  just  said  they  are  now  coming  at  the  rate 
of  a  million  or  more  a  year.  They  are  coming  to 
a  land  of  employment  under  a  system  which  con- 
stantly makes  the  poor  richer  and  the  rich  divide 
more  and  more  with  the  poor  through  the  medium 
of  wages.  When  these  people  come  here,  we  have 
them  under  our  flag,  subject  to  our  laws  and  our 
civilization.  And  what  is  more  appropriate?  Are 
we  not  all  immigrants  together?  Should  we  not 
share  our  system  of  wealth-distribution  with  them, 
osneoiallv  when  they  bring  their  willing  hands 
and  needy  bodies  to  help  us  both  in  product"'" 
and  in  consumption?  Tf  it  is  "foreign"  trade  we 
want,  is  it  not  better  to  import  the  trade  in  the 
bodies1  of  these  immigrants  than  in  the  form  of 
Sfoods  to  kill  industry  here?  Tf  we  get  foreign 
frade  in  this  way,  we  can  control  it,  sure  enough. 
We  can  fence  it  in  and  have  it  all  for  ourselves 


74 

and  not  fight  for  it  with  all  creation.  What  ia 
the  use  of  going  abroad  after  foreign  trade  when, 
if  we  keep  wages  high  here  by  a  sky-high  tariff- 
dike,  foreign  trade  will  come  to  us?  In  this  way 
we  are  gradually  annexing  the  world  and  fencing 
in  its  trade  under  such  terms  that  nobody  can 
kick.  You  remember  what  the  old  Quaker  lady 
said,  your  Honors.  We  think  it  was  something 
like  this :  "I  do  not  see  why  the  young  men  should 
put  on  their  best  clothes  and  go  out  to  see  the 
young  women.  Why,  if  the  young  men  would 
only  sit  quietly  at  home,  the  young  women  would 
come  to  see  them."  And  so  it  would  be  with 
foreign  trade,  if  we  would  not  go  out  to  look  it 
up,  but  sat  quietly  at  home.  And  that  is  what 
it  is  doing  in  the  persons  of  these  immigrants. 
But  that  don't  bring  any  grist  to  the  mill  of  the 
wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust.  Tt  don't  want 
us  to  annex  the  world  in  easy  instalments'  through 
immigration.  And  so  it  plots  against  the  dike 
which  brings  in  the  world  and  says,  "Down  with  the 
'trusts!'  Down  with  the  'malefactors  of  great 
wealth,'  that  sell  their  goods  dearer  at  home  than 
they  do  abroad."  Why,  your  Honors,  if  this  plain- 
tiff would  only  stay  quiet  a  spell  and  let  the  dike 
do  its  perfect  work,  there  would  very  soon  be  no 
"abroad"  left,  for  all  "abroad"  would  have  been 
annexed  to  us. 


75 


THE  WILY  PLAINTIFFS  BREED  ANARCHISTS. 

This1,  your  Honors,  is  the  gravest  charge  which 
we  have  to  bring  against  these  wily  plaintiffs. 
Although  by  dynamiting  our  dike  they  scatter 
throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  our  land 
misery  like  fire-brands  in  standing  corn;  although 
their  effect  upon  the  temporal  happiness  of  our 
people  is  baleful  and  nothing  but  baleful,  it  is 
their  effect  upon  the  immortal  souls  of  our  citi- 
zens which  we  most  deeply  deplore.  For  they  not 
only  vociferate  their  charges  against  the  "trusts" 
and  "predatory  wealth,"  and  thus  divide  the 
people  into  imaginary  classes  of  "rich"  and 
"poor,"  "labor"  and  "capital,"  "producer"  and 
"consumer,"  whereas  in  this  whole  country  there 
is  no  rich  class  or  poor  class,  laboring  class  or 
capital  class,  consuming  class,  or  producing  class; 
they  not  only  destroy  all  boundaries  between  what 
specific  laws  outline  as  crime  and  what  is  crime 
only  to  the  frenzied  victims  of  these  wily  plain- 
tiffs, thus  making  each  individual  a  judge,  a  jury, 
and  a  hangman  for  whomsoever  his  prejudices  do 
not  approve;  they  not  only  obliterate  the  land- 
marks of  legal  distinctions  by  thus  discounting 
the  distinctions  established  by  ages  of  judicial  de- 
termination;  they  not  only  substitute  envy,  mal- 
ire,  and  the  guess-work  of  prejudice  in  the  place 
of  fixed  law;  they  not  only  foment  anarchy  by 
accusing  men  of  being  robbers  and  criminals  for 
acquiring,  holding,  and  disposing  of  property,  ex- 


actly  in  the  same  manner  as  do  all  other  citizens, 
with  the  difference  only  that  those  accused  have 
more  property,  hold  it  more  securely,  and  dispose 
of  it  more  in  accordance  with  their  own  interests 
than  do  others  who  are  less  independent;  they 
not  only  destroy  all  respect  for  courts  that  do 
not  depart  from  the  letter  and  the  spirit  of  the 
law  and  confiscate  property  held  by  "predatory 
wealth,"  "bad  combinations,"  and  "wealthy  male- 
factors," when  the  only  proof  that  the  accused 
are  "predatory,"  "bad,"  or  "malefactors,"  is  the 
fact  that  they  have  property  which  they  have  ac- 
quired, held,  or  sold,  guided  by  exactly  the  same 
rules  and  laws  which  guide  their  accusers,  and 
not  that  they  have  violated  any  written  or  un- 
written law  hitherto  known ;  they  not  only  breathe 
into  our  ill-arranged  aggregations  of  brain-cells 
the  spirit  of  Lynch  law  and  naked  confiscation; 
but  they  also  at  the  same  time  are  bringing  about 
a  condition  wherein  a  premium  will  be  placed  up- 
on crime  and  a  penalty  upon  honesty.  For,  your 
Honors,  as  we  have  said  before,  the  instinct  of 
self-preservation  is  but  the  instinct  which  leads 
us  away  from  pain  and  towards  pleasure;  and  we 
are  at  the  mercy,  not  only  of  our  various1  groups 
of  brain-cells  which,  when  they  get  certain  sen- 
sations, urge  us  to  act  in  this  way  but  we  are 
also  at  the  mercy  of  those  brain-cells  which  ex- 
amine and  approve  or  disapprove  the  means  of 
switching  on  pleasure  or  switching  off  pain; 
which  brain-cells  also  have  the  form  which  was 
given  to  them  by  heredity  and  previous  environ- 
ment, neither  of  which  was  within  our  control. 
Now,  your  Honors,  we  all  love  pleasure  and  hate 
pain;  but  we  differ  in  the  brain-cells  which  set- 
tle upon  the  means  by  which  we  take  the  pleasure 


77 

and  leave  the  pain ;  and  we  are  very  serious  in  the 
opinion,  your  Honors,  that    the    majority    of    ua 
would  be  so  weak  that,  were  we  given  the  choice 
of  dying  from  hunger  on   the  one  hand,  or  living 
from  stealing  on  the  other,  our  judicial  brain-cells 
could  not  hinder    our    desiring    brain-cells    from 
stealing  instead  of  dying.     Now,  in  the  manner 
we  have  noted  before,  the  tariff -dike  makes  it  more 
easy  and  much  safer  to"  work  than  steal.     But, 
alas,  your  Honors,  when  the  dike  is  down,  it  looks 
to  many  of  us  as  if  the  one  who  steals  has  the 
best  time;  and  more  and  more  of  us  decide  it  is 
better  to  steal  than  to  starve;  and  when  we  are 
forced  to  steal  or  starve,  your  Honors,  we  listen 
with  far  more  patience  than    otherwise   to    these 
plaintiffs  who  divide  our  people  into  rich  and  poor, 
capitalists  and  laborers,  producers  and  consumers, 
the  governing  and  the  governed,  and  set  us  all 
quarreling  with  each   other,   in  order  that  these 
plaintiffs  may  pinch  the  clothing  which  we  have 
laid  aside  for  the  scrap.     It  is  these  wily  plain- 
tiffs, your  Honors,  who  by  dynamiting  protection 
dikes  and  dams,  cause  all  chronic  lawlessness  in 
this  and  other  countries;  they  and  their  itching 
palms  for  our  bank-savings;  they  and  their  life- 
business  which  is  to  feast  from  our  famine.     For 
when   we  feast,   they  are  hungry,   your  Honors; 
then  they  holler  "fire"  and    stampede    us    down 
stairs  to  the  street  and  sit  down  in  the  seats  at 
the  table  still  warm  with  our  late  occupancy.     But, 
your  Honors,  the  policy  of  this  country  should  be 
to  make  men  honest    and   orderly   by   makiug   it 
easier  to  earn  a  living  than  to  steal  it.    This  policy 
continued  from  now  on  would  gradually  make  us 
the  most  moral  and  well-ordered  community  under 
the  sun.     All  our  brain-cells  which  urge  towards 


78 

pleasure  and  away  from  pain,  would  be  urging  to- 
wards houest  toil  and  away  from  the  lives  lived 
by  pickpockets,  burglars',  highway  robbers,  and 
these  wily  plaintiffs. 

Therefore  our  public  sentiment  should  say  to 
every  citizen: 

"If  in  quality  and  variety,  the  products  of  this 
country  are  not  sufficient  for  your  refined  tastes, 
you  would  do  well  to   emigrate   to   some   place 
where  you  can  get  what  you  want.     For,  if  you 
remain  with  us,  you  must  spend  with  us  all  the 
money  we  pay  you  for  working  for  us.     One  good 
turn  deserves  another,  and  our  good  turn  in  giv- 
ing you  a  good  job  and  good  wages  in  working  for 
us  deserves  that  you  return  our  good  turn  by  giv- 
ing us1  a  good  job  at  good  wages  working  for  you. 
But  if  you  return  our  good  turn  by  taking  the 
money  we  pay  you  and  serving  our  good  turn  on 
aliens  abroad,  you  will  have  robbed  us  of  our 
deserts,    weakened    us    morally,    mentally    and 
physically,  and  proved  yourself  an  "undesirable 
citizen."     For  you  will  have  taken  from  us  some 
of  our  natural  opportunities  to  exercise  our  stom- 
achs,  our   consciences,   our   intellects  and   our 
muscles,  and  have  left  us  weak  in  these  things 
where  we  need  to  be  strong  for  the  strenuous1  lives 
that  are  before  us.     If  you  and  your  like,  operat- 
ing through   the  wily  plaintiffs,  the   Importing 
Trust  and  Exporting  Trust,  are  allowed  to  keep 
on  stealing  these  opportunities  and  selling  them 
to  people  in  foreign  parts  at  a  profit  for  yourself 
alone,  there  will  soon   not   be   enough  of  these 
opportunities  to  go  around  among  us  here  at 
home,  and  some  of  us  must  die  of  starvation ;  and 
a  lot  more  of  us  will  lie,  cheat,  steal  and  even  kill 
to  save  our  lives.     And  this  would  be  going  back 
to  the  woods  and  darkness  of  savagerv.  instead 
of  forward  to  the  sunnier  heights  of  civilization. 
This  is  the  mathematics  of  the  case.     Therefore, 
if  vou  remain  with  us,  we  shall  not  allow  you  to 
sell  out  our  morality,  our  intelligence,  and  our 


79 

precious  human  bodies  to  your  pals1  in  foreign 
countries,  and  grow  rich  and  proud  members  of 
the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  or  can- 
nibal and  fratricidal  members  of  the  Exporting 
Trust — also  a  wily  plaintiff — on  the  reward, 
whether  in  silver  or  goods,  of  the  betrayal  of  our 
nation  to  the  spoilers." 


XI 


TO  PROMOTE  INTERNECINE  STRIFE  AMONG  THE  PEOPLE 
FOR  THEIR  OWN  PRIVATE  GAIN,  THE  WILY  PLAIN- 
TIFFS, IN  DIVIDING  THE  PEOPLE  OF  THIS  COUNTRY 

INTO  "GOVERNING"  AND  "GOVERNED;"  "RICH" 
AND  "POOR;"  "CAPITAL"  AND  "LABOR;"  AND 
"PRODUCERS"  AND  "CONSUMERS,"  ATTEMPT  AN 
IMPOSSIBLE  CLASSIFICATION. 

Your  Honors,  it  must  be  apparent  to  you  by  this 
time  that  there  is  nothing  accidental  in  the  way 
the  American  people  destroy  their  own  prosper- 
ity for  the  profit  of  these  wily  plaintiffs.  For 
there  may  be  felt  at  all  times  a  strong  undercur- 
rent of  public-  sentiment  against  our  tariff-dike; 
and  the  cause  of  this  undercurrent  is  not  far  to 
seek.  It  is  the  adroit  hypnotism  of  these  wily  plain- 
tiffs, but  principally  of  the  Importing  Trust.  For 
example,  the  jealousy  and  envy  of  our  people  are 
excited  by  calling  the  servants  of  this  Republic 
names  which  imply  subjection  on  the  part  of  the 
people  and  awaken  the  hatred  which  all  free  men 
have  for  tyranny.  For  instance,  your  Honors,  the 
Importing  Trust,  through  its  newspaper  following, 
speaks  of  the  President  as1  our  "ruler1'  and  his  rule 
as  the  "government  at  Washington;"  and  of  peo- 


80 

pie  as  being  "presented''  to  the  President  at  the 
White  House  as  if  he  were  a  king,  and  something 
more  than  merely  our  servant,  and  the  "govern- 
ment" something  more  than  merely  we,  the  people 
acting  through  our  servant  the  President;  and  this 
is  done,  your  Honors,  to  arouse  in  the  minds  of 
the  thoughtless  a  sort  of  "class"  feeling,  as  if  the 
governing  were  one  class  and  the  governed  another, 
with  grievances'  against  an  irresponsible  despot, 
and  with  no  way  of  getting  free  other  than  by 
revolution.  Thus  the  Importing  Trust  foments 
antagonism  between  the  people  as  the  "govern- 
ment" and  the  people  as  the  "governed;"  and  as 
the  "government"  builds  the  tariff-dike,  the  Im- 
porting Trust  eggs  on  the  "governed"  until  they 
overturn  it;  whereat,  of  course,  the  Importing 
Trust  rejoices  with  exceeding  great  joy  and 
pounces  on  the  spoils  of  its  victory,  our  domestic 
market.  Now,  your  Honors,  nothing  could  be  more 
false  than  this  idea  which  the  Importing  Trust 
suggests  to  our  people.  The  president  is  the  hum- 
ble servant  of  the  rest  of  us;  or  would  be  "hum- 
ble," if  he  stopped  to  think  how  and  for  what  pur- 
pose he  was  made  president;  and  if  he  gets  a 
swelled  head  as  presidents  sometimes  do,  why, 
your  Honors,  we  have  only  to  go  quietly  to  the 
ballot-box  and  snow  him  under  so  deep  that  he 
cannot  thaw  out  before  late  spring.  The  trouble 
with  many  of  us  is,  however,  your  Honors,  that 
our  brain-cells  which  strike  for  violent  measures 
are  more  powerful  than  those  which  are  tempered 
by  passing  through  the  clearing  house  of  reason; 
and  the  result  is  that,  instead  of  managing  our 
own  affairs  quietly  and  in  our  own  interest,  some 
sly  fellow  like  the  Importing  Trust  stands  by  and 
uses  hypnotism  to  manage  us  in  his  own  interest. 


81 

Again,  your  .donors,  sometimes  through  its 
newspapers  and  sometimes  through  persons  higher 
up,  the  Importing  Trust,  suggests  that  the  people 
in  this  country  are  divided  into  the  "poor"  and 
the  "rich,"  "predatory  capitalists,"  "malefactors 
of  great  wealth,"  and  the  like.  Again,  your 
Honors,  any  one  with  but  a  few  sound  and  sane 
brain-cells  in  the  thinking  area  of  his  cerebrum, 
would  know  better  than  take  such  classifications 
as  true  ones.  In  this  country  there  are  no  poor, 
as  a  class,  and  no  rich,  as  a  class.  There  are  poor 
people  and  rich  people;  but  where  the  poor  leave 
off  and  the  rich  begin,  no  fellow  can  find  out. 
What  is  poverty  for  one  is  wealth  for  another; 
what  is  wealth  for  one  is  poverty  for  another.  It 
is  all  in  the  point  of  view.  The  man  with  a  mil- 
lion dollars  who  does  not  want  money  but  the 
love  of  some  good  woman  which  he  can  never  have, 
is  one  of  the  poorest  and  most  wretched  of  men. 
But  the  man  with  no  more  than  his  daily  wages, 
no  matter  how  small,  so  long  as  they  are  enougn 
to  maintain,  in  very  reasonable  comfort,  him  and 
the  family  he  worships,  is  one  of  the  richest  men 
on  earth. 

Again,  your  Honors,  there  are  no  "predatory 
capitalists"  in  the  sense  that  they  make  up  a  class. 
People  are  not  "predatory"  in  a  sense  deserving 
public  denunciation,  unless  they  have  broken  the 
law,  no  matter  whether  they  are  "capitalists"  or 
not;  and  whether  or  not  they  have  broken  the  law 
is  a  question  for  the  established  courts;  and  when 
these  courts  have  determined  that  they  have  bro- 
ken the  law,  the  same  courts  will  punish  them 
without  any  oratorical  foam  and  fury,  self-ad- 
vertisement and  self-glorification,  and  still  irre- 
spective of  whether  or  not  they  are  "capitalists." 


82 

And  until  the  courts  have  determined  that  people 
have  broken  laws,  people  are  all  innocent  before 
the  law.  And  any  one  who  will  brand  a  great  body 
of  people  in  a  general  way  as  "predatory  capital- 
ists," and  then  leave  it  for  the  prejudices  of  each 
individual  to  make  personal  application  as  they 
please,  convicts  himself  at  least  of  having  more 
brain-cells  of  force  than  brain-cells  of  fairness, 
and  not  knowing  a  "square  deal"  when  he  sees  it. 
In  fact  he  is  a  good  anarchist.  For  he  is  destroy- 
ing the  standard  by  which  to  judge,  your  Honors. 
The  law  and  its  definitions  of  crime  are  ignored 
by  people  with  brain-cells  of  this  kind,  who  cast 
reproach  broadside  at  an  indefinite  cloud  of  peo- 
ple. It  is  then  a  go-as-you-please  competition  be- 
tween those  who  wish  to  stick  labels  marked 
"predatory  capitalist"  on  any  one  whom,  not  the 
courts,  not  the  law,  not  orderly  procedure;  but 
whom  the  particular  label-sticker  desires  so  to 
mark.  This,  your  Honors,  is  to  discount  law  at 
a  very  low  figure.  "Predatory  capitalist"  is  used 
in  a  condemnatory  sense;  and,  as  we  have  said, 
to  apply  such  terms  with  any  color  of  authority 
is  to  breed  anarchy,  to  make  every  man  the  exe- 
cutioner of  whomsoever  disagrees  with  him  in 
opinion  or  is  superior  to  him  in  wealth.  To  apply 
such  terms  as  this  is1  to  show  very  weak  brain- 
cells  where  brain-cells  should  be  strong.  For  to 
single  out  "capitalist"  as  a  class  to  which  to 
attach  the  term  "predatory"  is1  as  narrow  as  to 
condemn  a  man  without  a  hearing  because  he  is 
Jew  or  Gentile,  white  or  colored,  and  not  because 
he  has  done  wrong.  All  "predatory"  people  are 
punishable  to  the  extent  of  the  law,  whether  they 
are  "capitalists"  or  not  capitalists;  but  to  refer 
to  "predatory"  capitalists  is  a  dangerous  thing; 


83 

since  there  are  those  with,  such  weak  brain-cells 
that  forever  thereafter  they  will  consider  that 
"predatory"  is  particularly  descriptive  of  "capi- 
talists" and  therefore  that  a  "capitalist"  is  nec- 
essarily "predatory,"  a  sort  of  an  outlaw,  to  shy 
at  whom  is  doing  God's  service.  Here  is  a  bad 
jumble  of  brain-cells,  your  Honors. 

And  it  is  the  same,  your  Honors,  with  "male- 
factors of  great  wealth,"  and  all  similar  expres- 
sions. The  injury  done  to  the  judicial  capacity 
of  the  thoughtless1  by  thus  selecting  people  of 
wealth  alone  to  pillory  as  "malefactors,"  is  very 
great.  Yet  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust, 
puts  these  expressions  in  the  mouths  of  its  news- 
paper organs'  and  its  open  and  secret  members 
everywhere,  for  the  express  purpose  of  making  the 
people,  in  the  end,  destroy  the  tariff-dike  and 
bring  great  wealth  to  the  purse  of  the  Import- 
ing Trust. 

Another  expression,  used  with  misleading  and 
inflammatory  intent,  is  "capital"  and  "labor." 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  "capital"  in  the  class 
sense;  nor  is  there  in  this  country,  any  such  thing 
as  "labor"  in  that  sense.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
every  man  who  handles  capital  is  a  laborer,  oft< 
a  very  strenuous  and  unresting  one;  while  every 
man  who  labors  is  a  capitalist.  But  where  the 
laborer  leaves  off  and  the  capitalist  begins;  or 
where  the  capitalist  leaves  off  and  the  laborer  be- 
gins, it  is  impossible  to  say.  No  man  could  use 
capital  successfully  without  personal  labor;  and 
no  laborer  could  offer  the  work  of  his  hands  with- 
out capital.  The  only  classification  possible  among 
people  who  are  thus  all  capitalists  and  all  labor- 
ers at  one  and  the  same  time  is  the  one  which  we 
mentioned  a  little  while  ago,  that  of  "wage-produ- 


cers,"  "property-producers,"  and  "adjunct-produ- 
cers;" which  includes  everybody  in  this  country, 
except  the  juvenile,  the  senile,  the  sick,  the  tramps, 
and  the  "consumers,"  who  live  on  their  money  and 
never  earn  any.  There  is  really  no  way  to  class- 
ify people  in  the  manner  given  out  by  the  wily 
plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  whose  echo  in  this 
matter  the  Exporting  Trust  sometimes  is. 

But  perhaps,  your  Honors,  in  this  busy  land, 
where  everyone  worth  while  depends  upon  some 
form  of  property-production  for  his  means  of  liv- 
ing, the  most  mischievous  work  of  the  Importing 
Trust,  in  this  attempt  to  divide  us  all  into  hostile 
camps  is  that  which  it  does  by  separating  us 
all  into  "producers"  and  "consumers,"  as  if  each 
group  were  a  tribe  by  itself,  with  its  knives  and 
tomahawks  whetted  for  the  throats  and  skulls  of 
the  other  fellows.  Nothing  could  be  farther  from 
the  fact  than  that  there  are  two  classes  of  this 
kind ;  and  we  cannot  understand  in  what  way  the 
wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  somewhat 
feebly  backed  in  this  regard  by  the  wily  plaintiff, 
the  Exporting  Trust,  could  have  hoped  to  impress 
this  classification  upon  our  people;  unless  per- 
haps it  was  a  harking  back  to  conditions  in  Great 
Britain  and  the  continent,  where  the  feudal  sys- 
tem was  the  mother  of  a  distinct  class  of  grandees 
who  practically  owned  the  bodies  and  souls  of  the 
workers  within  their  zones  of  influence,  the  work- 
ers being  regarded  as  the  "producers"  and  the 
grandees  and  their  families  and  favorites  being 
regarded  as  ^consumers."  It  must  have  been  un- 
der such  conditions,  where  labor  was  considered 
degrading  by  the  upper  classes,  who  practically 
owned  and  felt  they  had  a  right  to  the  earnings 
of  the  "producers,"  that  this  idea  of  a  separation 


85 

of  workers  into  "producers"  and  "consumers"  had 
its  origin,  the  same  classification  being  now  made 
here  by  the  Importing  Trust  to  inflate  the  pride 
of  would-be  grandees  in  this  country,  who  also 
feel  as  if  labor  is  performed  by  a  lower  race  than 
themselves.  We  may  depend,  your  Honors,  that 
it  was  during  this1  feudal  condition  and  the  sepa- 
ration of  people  into  workers  or  "producers"  and 
rulers  or  "consumers"  that  the  old  laws  and  rul- 
ings against  "restraint  of  trade"  were  made,  which 
had  no  other  object  than  to  flog  the  "producers," 
the  practical  slaves  of  the  "consumers,"  into  sur- 
rendering to  the  "consumers"  or  non-producers, 
without  regard  to  the  cost  to  the  workers  or  pro- 
ducers, the  results  of  the  tatter's  labor,  at  the 
price  which  the  "consumers"  might  themselves 
consider  fair.  Thus,  when  the  grandees  on  the 
one  hand  combined  to  force  legal  rulings  against 
"combinations  in  restraint  of  trade,"  they  out- 
lawed on  the  other  combinations  which  were  mere- 
ly offsets  to  their  own  combination,  which  latter 
was  contrived  to  enforce  destructive  competition. 
AVe  have  certain  people  in  this  country,  whose 
brain-cells  in  the  equity  division  are  small  and 
feeble,  and  who  make  a  great  deal  of  capital  by 
following  in  the  footsteps  of  those  old  grandees 
and  their  oppression  of  the  "proudcers."  We  ven- 
ture to  say,  your  Honors,  that  every  rule  made 
against  "combinations  in  restraint  of  trade'1  was 
made  by  some  combination  to  compel  the  produ- 
cer, through  destructive  competition,  to  give  up 
his  property  at  a  ruin  price  to  the  "consumer." 
The  corrupt  source  'of  the  laws  against  combina- 
tions in  restraint  of  trade  is  proven  by  the  fact 
that  there  was  no  law  preventing  any  corporation 
in  which  the  grandees  or  "consumers"  had  stock 


86 

interests,  no  matter  ho\v  large  and  how  compre- 
hensive in  its  hold  on  prime  necessities  of  life, 
from  acquiring  as  much  or  as  little  property  as 
it  pleased,  sending  it  where  it  pleased,  selling  it 
as  soon  or  as  late  as  it  pleased  and  at  what  price 
and  under  whatever  conditions  it  pleased;  and  no 
law  thus  limiting  property  rights  in  corporations 
has  ever  been  since  made  and  all  the  talk  of  our 
Importing-Trust-owned  demagogues  against  "bad 
corporations,"  in  which  they  promise  to  prevent 
the  "extortions"  of  the  trusts  is  idle  clap-trap  and 
must  remain  so  until  a  constitutional  amendment 
lodges  in  Congress  absolute  power  to  limit  the 
property-rights  of  all  citizens  of  the  United  States 
in  any  way  it  pleases;  and  then  any  political 
party  which  holds  the  presidency  and  both 
branches  of  Congress  can  strip  the  "other  fellows" 
of  as  much  of  their  property  as  they  please,  at 
any  rate  up  to  the  limit  where  it  would  make  Lu- 
cifer blush  for  the  depravity  of  his  brain-cells,  had 
he  been  such  a  thief. 

Your  Houors,  it  seems  impossible  to  divide  our 
active  people  into  "producers"  and  "consumers;" 
for  it  seems  to  us,  your  Honors,  that  production 
and  consumption  are  the  same  thing  looked  at 
from  opposite  standpoints;  and  that,  therefore, 
"producer"  and  "consumer"  are  the  same,  being 
merely  the  reverse  faces  of  the  same  coin.  We 
might  mount  the  high  horse  of  prancing  rhetoric 
and  say:  production  and  consumption  are  but 
eternally  alternating  phases  in  the  endless  pro- 
cession of  changes  in  the  phantasmagoria  of  mat- 
ter. Look,  your  Honors,  is  not  production  also 
consumption?  In  his  production  does  not  the 
property-producer  consume  the  "finished  pro- 
ducts" of  other  property-producers?  And  are  not 


87 

these  finished  products  also  the  "raw  material" 
which  some  of  our  property  producers,  who,  con- 
spiring with  these  wily  plaintiffs,  desire  to  get 
from  abroad  over  a  broken  tariff -dike?  Look- 
ing backward  to  your  buying  market,  are  you  not 
consuming;  and  looking  forward  to  your  selling 
market,  are  you  not  producing?  And  is  it  not 
also  the  same  with  the  wage-producer?  Looking 
backward  towards  his  food,  clothing  and  shelter, 
which  have  given  him  the  energy  that  he  is  now 
turning  into  wages',  is  he  not  consuming  these 
things?  And  looking  forward  toward  his  wages, 
is  he  not  producing  wages?  It  seems  so  to  us, 
your  Honors,  and  that,  therefore,  producer  and 
consumer,  are  the  same. 


XII 


BY  AROUSING  THE  "CONSUMER"  AGAINST  THE  "PRO- 
DUCER/' THE  WILY  PLAINTIFF,  THE  IMPORTING 
TRUST.  TREACHEROUSLY  LURES  THE  "CONSU- 
MER" TO  HIS  OWN  DESTRUCTION. 

In  the  active  world,  your  Honors,  every  producer 
produces  because  he  must  consume;  and  every 
consumer  consumes  because  he  must  produce. 
This  is  a  law  of  nature.  Whatever  the  transient 
form  of  a  given  mass  of  matter,  necessity  is  back 
of  all  voluntary  changes'  in  its  relations  to  another 
mass.  It  is  changed  in  production  and  changed 
again  in  consumption,  which  itself  is  production. 
It  is  changed  in  producing  a  supply  for  him  who 
changes  it,  either  for  his  own  consumption  or  to 
exchange  at  the  demand  of  another  for  the  supply 


88 

offered  by  that  other.  In  either  case,  it  is  changed 
for  further  change  by  consumption  in  effecting  a 
further  production.  Therefore,  since  a  man  pro- 
duces a  supply  in  order  to  effect  a  demand  and 
consume  another's  supply,  his  demand  is  measured 
by  his  own  supply  to  the  market,  so  that  his  sup- 
ply is  practically  the  same  thing  as  his  demand. 
If  you  desire  the  demand  on  a  market  always  to 
be  equal  to  its  supply  and  business  to  be  uniformly 
good,  you  must  see  to  it  that  each  supply  takes 
effect  as  a  demand.  To  meet  a  domestic  supply 
with  a  demand  already  satisfied  by  a  foreign  sup- 
ply, is  to  tie  the  tongue  of  your  domestic  demand. 
It  is  to  leave  a  domestic  want  unsupplied,  and 
domestic  misery  where  there  should  have  been 
satisfaction.  Therefore,  your  Honors,  the  happi- 
ness, yea,  the  very  life  of  our  community  hangs  upon 
the  opportunity  of  its  people  to  supply  their  own 
demands;  and  this  depends  upon  whether  or  not 
the  STipply  expressing  A's  want  or  demand  meets 
at  short  and  quick  range  B's  want  or  demand, 
expressed  in  the  terms  of  a  supply  which  satisfies 
A's  demand. 

This  is  the  whole  philosophy  of  communal  pros- 
perity, morality,  civilization,  progress,  refinement. 
By  hitching  supply  and  demand  together  so  closely 
that  they  don't  leak  a  drop  and  each  exactly  fills 
the  other,  all  chance  should  be  taken  out  of  the 
question. 

Ah,  we  hear  our  learned  brother  at  our  left, 
counsel  for  the  wily  plaintiffs,  say  in  a  stage  whis- 
per: "And  what  a  fix  your  producers  would  be 
in  from  overproduction,  if  they  found  no  market 
but  that  made  by  their  own  bellies,  backs,  and 
beds!"  No,  your  Honors,  there  would  be  no  over- 
production. There  would  be  production  enough 


89 

to  keep  the  whole  community  happy,  with  a  safe 
margin  for  emergencies;  and  then  there  would  be 
here  and  there  a  holiday,  a  few  more  picnics  and 
periods  of  rest  and  rationality.  There  would  be 
a  happy  communal  life;  but  there  would  not  be 
the  piling  up  of  great  fortunes  at  the  expense  of 
the  overworked.  The  confinement  of  home  demand 
to  home  supply  and  contrariwise,  would  make  such 
a  division  of  wealth  that  wage-producers  would  be 
able  to  work  fewer  hours  in  a  day  and  fewer  days 
in  a  week  and  still  save  just  as  much  for  a  rainy 
day. 

It  is  just  as  bad  to  allow  your  domestic  supply 
to  be  wasted  on  foreign  demand  as  it  is  to  allow 
your  domestic  demand  to  be  wasted  on  foreign 
supply.  To  do  the  first  is  to  raise  prices.  To  do 
the  second  is  to  depress  wages.  To  do  either  is 
to  separate  producer  and  consumer,  which  pre- 
vents the  wage-producer  from  receiving  back  in 
full  the  energy  and  life  which  he  has  put  into  his 
product.  The  condition  of  an  even  exchange  in 
this  regard  is  that  a  man  as  a  producer  should 
be  separated  from  himself  as  a  consumer  by  as 
small  a  gap  as  possible.  In  the  primitive  state, 
each  man  supplied  his  own  wants  and  wanted  only 
his  own  supply.  But  now-a-days  we  make  directly 
a  single  sort  of  thing  and  by  proxy  all  the  other 
things  we  need.  With  most  of  us,  wages  are  the 
only  thing  we  produce  directly,  while  we  produce 
by  proxy  everything  necessary  for  our  use.  We 
hire  others  to  do  our  work.  Others'  hire  us  to 
do  their  work.  We  producers  are  all  agents  for 
each  other  and  each  of  us  is  entitled  to  just  as 
many  agents  as  he  can  pay  for  with  his  own  work 
for  them.  But  now  along  comes  the  Importing 
Trust,  and  by  some  one  of  its  mouthpieces  says, 


90 

"the  price  of  bread  is  too  high.     The  'consumer* 
is  being  robbed.    Give  us  a  low  tariff-dike  on  the 
side   of  wheat."    Now  one  of   these   badly   used 
"consumers"   is  a  cobbler,   for  instance.     He  la 
mending  shoes  directly  but  raising  wheat  by  proxy ; 
and  the  price  the  farmer  pays  for  cobbling  depends 
on  the  price  he  pays  the  farmer  for  wheat.    So  the 
"consumer,"  the  cobbler,  is  as  much  interested  in 
a  good  price  for  wheat  as  is  the  farmer.    Cut  down 
the  price  of  wheat  and  you  cut  down  the  price  of 
cobbling.    Now  suppose  the  people  of  the  commun- 
ity barkened  to  the  Importing  Trust  and,  helped 
the  wily  plaintiff  break  the  tariff-dike  for  wheat. 
Why,  all  the  cobblers  would  find  that  the  low  price 
of  wheat  had  put  the  farmers  out  of  the  cobbling 
shop  and  they  were  doing   their    cobbling    them- 
selves1, or  going  barefoot.     And  the  illumination 
of  the  cobblers  would  be  but  a  specimen  of  that 
experienced  by  all  the  other  "consumers"  in  town. 
No  matter  how  high  the  prices  which  the  "con- 
sumers" are  paying,  with  a  high  tariff-dike,  the 
community  as  a  whole  gets  it  all;  and  the  "con- 
sumers" are  the  community.    The  higher  the  prices 
they  pay  as  "consumers,"  the  greater  the  wages 
they  get  as  producers.     But  the  dear  old  "consu- 
mer" always  figures  about  so  large  in  a  dike  "re- 
vision" campaign,  which  is  always  a  campaign  of 
confusion  of  fact  by  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Im- 
porting Trust,  who  depends  upon  the  ignorance 
nnd  fury  of  the  people  to  help  it  steal  our  savings. 
After  the  battle  the  valiant  "consumers"  glory  a 
while  in   their  victory  and  then  give  themselves 
to  happy  slumber:  but  only  to  awaken  soon  to  the 
eoid  and  clammy  fact  that  however  warm  and  well 
filled  they  were  last  night  as  victorious  "consu- 


91 

mers,"  as  "producers"  they  are  this  morning  very, 
very  hungry  and  forlorn. 

Such  an  artless  arrangement  of  brain-cells  as 
these  "consumers"  have,  your  Honors! 


XIII 

BY  ITS  OWN  RULE  "BUY  IN  THE  CHEAPEST,  SELL  IN 
THE  DEAREST  MARKET/'  THE  WILY  PLAINTIFF, 
THE  IMPORTING  TRUST,,  TACITLY  SAYS,  WHEN  IT 
OFFERS  US  ITS  GOODS,  THAT  WE  ARE  ITS  DEAREST 
MARKET;  AND  THUS,  TACITLY  GIVES  THE  LIE  TO 
ITS  OWN  DECLARATION  THAT,  IN  DEALING  WITH 
US,  IT  IS  EXCHANGING  GOODS  FOR  GOODS. 

We  know,  your  Honors,  that  it  is  the  business 
of  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust  to  im- 
port, and  to  say  that  neither  the  producer,  whose 
products  you  buy  nor  the  consumer,  who  buys  your 
products,  need  be  your  next  door  neighbor  at  all; 
but  he  may  just  as  well  be  in  Portugal  or  Persia; 
that  the  course  of  trade  will  see  that  the  thing  you 
want  to  buy  is  handy,  no  matter  where  made ;  and 
that  the  thing  you  want  to  sell  has  a  customer 
somewhere  on  earth ;  and  that  it  is  your  privilege 
to  exchange  your  product  for  the  product  of  some 
ono  far  away,  if  the  distant  product  is  cheaper 
tli an  that  of  your  next  door  neighbor.  But  you 
don't  exchange  the  direct  product  of  your  hands, 
a  <>offpo-pot,  a  hairbrush,  or  a  door-mat,  which,  as 
a  wage-producer,  you  have  already  sold  for  wages 
to  the  property-producer.  If  you  tried  to  exchange 
the  TOTT  Ihing  you  make  for  the  very  thing  the 
fellow  in  Portugal  or  Persia  makes,  the  trade 


92 

would    stop    right    there;    because    the    foreigner 
would  not  exchange  with  you  for  the  simple  reason 
that,  at  half  your  price,   he  could  buy  in  some 
market  other  than  ours  the  same  thing  you  offer. 
But  for  what  you  buy  abroad  you  exchange  gold 
coin  instead  of  goods  or  what  you  produce;  and 
that  deceives  you  as  to  the  true  nature  of  the  trade, 
which  is  a  sort  of  unwritten  treason  on  your  part. 
Because,  the  reason  you  buy  a  thing  abroad  is  that 
you  can  buy  it  at  a  lower  price  than  at  home,  where 
the  price  must  pay  back  to  your  neighbor  the  same 
sort  of  high  wages  which  he  pays  for  your  labor. 
That  is  the  only  reason  why  you  buy  abroad;  and 
when  the  Importing  Trust  wants  to  sell  you  any- 
thing, that  fact  alone  is  enough  to  warn  you  that 
in  buying  you  are   weakening    a    home    industry. 
For  the  business  of  the  wily  plaintiff  is  to  "buy 
in  the  cheapest  market  and  sell  in  the  dearest: 
and  its  selling  to  you  is  a  sign  that  you  are  it's 
dearest  market  for  that  article.     In  other  words, 
that  some  other  locality  than  your  own  country 
has  been  discovered  by  the  Importing  Trust  where 
the  article  is  made  more  cheaply  than  it  is  made 
here;  which  makes  the  purchasing  of  that  article 
from  the  wily  plaintiff  by  our  people  the  same  as 
the  substitution  of  an  industry    in    Portugal    or 
Persia  for  one  in  the  United  States,  and,  over  a 
whole  industry,  separates  the  producing  side  from 
the  consuming  side ;  which  simply  means  the  death 
of  that  industry  and  the  death  of  many  and  the 
degradation  of  all  its  wage-producers.     It  would 
be  a  good  plan  for  every  American  wage-producer, 
before  helping  the  Importing  Trust  "revise"  the 
dike,  to  see  how  far  he  could  go  in  exchanging 
the  very  article  he  makes  in  the  shop  with  some 


93 

article  shown  on  the  counters  of  the  Importing 
Trust  in  this  country. 

It  would  be  easy  to  smoke  out  the  wily  plaintiff 
in  this  way  and  test  its  own  belief  in  what  it  says 
about  international  trade  being  an  even  exchange 
of  goods;  and  about  the  necessity  of  buying  if  you 
wish  to  sell.  For  if  it  wanted  your  goods  so  badly, 
it  would  charge  you  no  commission  at  all,  but 
would  take  your  goods  at  your  price,  which 
would  cover  your  high  wages,  the  cost  of  the 
material  and  the  property-producer's  profit;  and 
in  exchange  and  to  the  extent  of  your  price 
would  give  you  goods  which  it  had  brought  from 
abroad,  charging  no  commissions  to  the  producers 
abroad,  and  making  the  price  of  the  foreign  goods 
to  you  just  enough  to  cover  the  wages  paid  abroad, 
the  materials,  and  the  usual  profit  to  the  foreign 
maker.  If  the  wily  plaintiff  would  take  your  goods 
on  these  terms,  it  would  be  a  sign  it  could  sell  them 
abroad;  that  there  was  a  real  demand  there  for 
the  very  kind  of  goods  you  made  and  that  such  de- 
mand was  good  enough  to  bear  the  commissions  of 
the  wily  plaintiff  in  the  price  at  which  it  sold  them. 

But  on  the  other  hand,  if  when  you  went  up  to 
its  counter,  the  wily  plaintiff  wanted  you  to  pay  in 
cash  instead  of  in  your  own  goods,  it  would  prove 
that,  for  the  same  money,  the  wily  plaintiff  could 
buy  abroad  more  of  your  kind  of  goods  than  you 
are  willing  to  sell. 

Since  it  is  the  Importing  Trust  which  is  "root- 
ing" for  a  tariff-dike  "revision"  downwards,  it 
must  be  doing  so  for  its  own  profit  and  because  it 
believes  that  such  "revision"  would  increase  its 
sales  in  our  market;  and  since  everybody  knows 
that  the  Importing  Trust  takes  nothing  but  gold 
for  goods  sold  to  our  people,  it  is  plain  that  its 


94 

goods  are  cheaper  than  ours  and  that  if  we  traded 
with  it,  it  would  destroy  American  industries  by 
buying  our  gold  with  its  goods  and  thus  separating 
those  industries  entirely  from  their  "consumers." 

We  think,  your  Honors,  we  have  proven  that,  to 
a  fatal  degree,  the  Importing  Trust  is  separating 
our  consumers  from  our  producing  side;  and  that 
we  have  incidentally  accounted  for  the  hunger,  soup 
houses,  nakedness,  crimes,  diseases  and  untimely 
deaths  which  follow  on  the  heels  of  tariff-dike  "rev- 
ision" and  the  good  luck  of  this  wily  plaintiff  in 
maddening  our  people  against  the  "trusts,"  our 
client,  American  Production. 

We  think  an  inspection  of  the  cerebrum  of  the 
wily  plaintiff,  your  Honor,  would  reveal  a  flourisli- 
ing  colony  of  brain-cells  in  the  organ  of  Appetite, 
but  a  yellow,  sickly,  puny,  scattering  and  expiring 
handful  of  the  same  in  the  organ  of  Compassion. 


XIV 

THE  WILY  PLAINTIFF,  THE  IMPORTING  TRUST,  WHEN 
IT  URGES  DIKE  "REVISION"  ON  BEHALF  OF  AMER- 
ICAN MANUFACTURERS,  IN  ORDER  THAT  THE 
LATTER  MAY  CHEAPEN  THEIR  PRODUCT  AND  SO 
CONQUER  "THE  MARKETS  OF  THE  WORLD/' 
KNOWS  THAT,  FOR  ITS  OWN  PURPOSEvS,  IT  IS 
HOLDING  OUT  AN  ILLUSORY  HOPE. 

Your  Honors,  those  acquainted  with  the  history 
of  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  should 
be  amused  by  its  worry  at  the  present  time  over 
the  health  of  that  branch  of  our  client  devoted  to 
manufacturing.  We  could  hardlv  believe  our  ears 


95 

when  counsel  tor  said  wily  plaintiff,  his  voice  mod- 
ulated to  tones  of  touching  tenderness,  deplored  the 
"selfishness"  and  the  "greed"  and  the  "avarice" 
which  led  so  many  Americans  to  want  a  high- tariff 
dike,  even  though  it  made  "raw  materials"  dear  for 
our  dear  manufacturers,  thus  making  their  product 
dearer,  and  shutting  them  from  the  mighty  profits 
which  he  said  were  awaiting  said  manufacturers 
"in  the  markets  of  the  world,"  and  which  would  be 
theirs  when  the  dike  was  lowered  and  the  boon  of 
"free  raw  materials"  conferred  upon  them.  Why, 
your  Honors,  what  brain-storm  has  scattered  the 
cells  presiding  over  morality  and  equity  in  the  cere- 
brum of  this  wily  plaintiff!  Lo,  after  years  of 
calling  our  manufacturers  "robber  barons,"  fatten- 
ing from  the  blood  of  our  "consumers;"  and  "pam- 
pered creatures"  of  "class  legislation,''  which  made 
ducks  and  drakes  of  the  great  Democratic  princi- 
ple of  "equal  rights  to  all,  special  privileges  to 
none,"  the  wily  plaintiff  has  ceased  this  terrible 
condemnation  and  on  the  contrary  is  filled  with 
tremblings  lest  our  manufacturers  should  make 
not  too  great  but  too  small  profits  from  our  people ; 
and  is  imploringly  pointing  the  way  by  which  their 
depredations  may  be  no  longer  confined  to  this 
country  but  luxuriated  in  also  by  all  the  grand 
peoples  who  buy  their  manufactures  in  the  "mar- 
kets of  tjie  world."  No  pent-up  Utica  should  now 
contract  the  powers  of  those  who  formerly  could 
do  nothing  but  wrong,  your  Honors,  the  wily  plain- 
tiff, the  Importing  Trust,  being  judge.  By  what 
evangel  has  the  American  manufacturer  thus  been 
converted  from  sinner  to  saint,  your  Honors!  Ah, 
your  Honors,  we  are  beset  with  gloomy  doubts. 
We  have  read  Aesop,  and  we  remember  the  story 
how  Mr.  Fox  praised  the  voice  of  Mr.  Crow  until 


96 

the  Jatter  opened  his  mouth  to  show  off  his  voice 
and  let  fall  his  dinner  in  the  jaws  of  Mr.  Fox;  and 
we  repeat,  we  are  harrassed  with  doubts  as  to  the 
kindheartedness  of  the  wily  plaintiff's  plaint  for 
"free  raw  materials"  for  the  American  manufact- 
urer. We  are  not  sure  but  he  is  after  Mr.  Manu- 
facturer's dinner.  We  fear  that  the  real  reason 
why  the  wily  plaintiff  wants  American  manufact- 
urers to  go  abroad  in  search  of  "the  markets  of 
the  world"  is  because  it  thinks  the  room  of  those 
same  manufacturers  in  our  markets  here  at  home 
is  better  than  their  company,  what  time  the  wily 
plaintiff  wishes  to  occupy  the  thoughts  of  the  poor 
American  "consumer."  And  we  are  confirmed  in 
our  fears  for  various  reasons : 

First,  your  Honors,  the  Dingly  Tariff  lets  in 
practically  free  of  duty  all  "raw  materials"  em- 
ployed in  making  goods  for  export.  Therefore  the 
dike  does  not  need  to  be  "revised"  to  assist  our 
manufacturers  to  "free  raw  materials"  if  that  is  all 
that  keeps  them  out  of  the  "markets  of  the  wrorld." 

Second,  in  the  cost  of  high-grade  manufactures, 
raw  material  cuts  very  little  figure.  For  one  ex- 
ample, the  "raw  material"  in  a  watch  spring  is 
worth  almost  too  little  for  calculation ;  but  finished 
watch  springs  are  very  valuable;  it  is  the  wages  in 
the  watch  spring  that  count.  What  the  wily  plain- 
tiff should  do,  if  it  really  wants  its  old  enemy,  the 
American  manufacturer,  to  conquer  the  markets  of 
the  world,  is  to  import  "free  raw  labor"  that  will 
work  for  less  than  fifteen  cents  a  day. 

For  another  example,  if  hides  are  imported  free  at 
the  cost  of  our  farmer's  home  market  for  hides,  s'hoes 
could  not  be  made  cheaper  here  by  more  than  from 
2c  to  4c  per  pair,  which  saving  would  not  go  into 
the  pocket  of  the  "consumer"  but  of  the  manufact- 


97 

urer,  as  it  is  too  small  to  change  the  retail  price; 
and  it  would  "cut  no  ice"  in  cheapening  shoes  for 
the  "capture  of  the  markets  of  the  world,"  as  hides 
or  leather  to  be  used  in  exports  is  already  "free," 
as  above  noted. 

Third,  we  have  absolute  free  trade  now  in  raw 
silk,  raw  cotton,  raw  rubber,  raw  timber,  raw  hard 
coal,  raw  petroleum,  and  various  "raw"  other 
things  and  we  export  no  more  of  the  finished  pro- 
ducts of  these  things  than  we  would  do  if  there 
were  a  tariff  against  them  all  when  imported. 

Fourth,  in  order,  by  lowering  the  dike  against 
"raw  materials,"  to  "capture  the  markets  of  the 
world,"  our  manufacturers  would  still  have  to  pay 
freights  and  insurance  on  their  goods  to  the  foreign 
markets;  and  at  the  ports  of  foreign  countries  pay 
high  tariffs,  which  are  levied  by  most  of  them  to 
protect  their  domestic  industries.  Does  the  wily 
plaintiff  mean  to  tell  us,  your  Honors,  that,  after 
these  other  additions  to  cost,  our  tariff  on  "raw  ma- 
terials" is  the  only  thing  which  still  keeps  our  man- 
ufacturers out  of  the  "markets  of  the  world." 

Fifth,  very  many  American  manufacturers,  the 
number  of  whom  is  increasing  daily,  have  built 
branch  factories  in  the  very  foreign  countries  to 
which  the  wily  plaintiff  claims  these  same  manu- 
facturers wish  to  export  goods  and  capture  "the 
markets  of  the  world ;"  and  thus  these  manufactur- 
ers already  have,  free  from  American  tariffs,  all  the 
"raw  material"  they  need  from  which  to  make 
goods  to  sell  in  the  countries  where  their  branch 
plants  are,  and  at  the  same  time  they  pay  no 
freights  and  insurance  on  goods  to  those  markets, 
as  they  would  do  if  supplying  them  from  their 
American  plants. 

Sixth,  it  looks  very  much  as  if  the  wily  plaintiff 


98 

had  made  common  cause  with  American  capital 
having  branch  plants  abroad,  to  "revise"  the  tariff 
dike  so  far  downward  that  both  the  wily  plaintiff, 
the  Importing  Trust,  and  American  expatriated 
manufacturers  could  get  goods  into  this  country 
from  the  low  foreign  pay-rolls. 

Seventh,  "raw  materials"  and  "finished  prod- 
ucts" are  different  names  for  precisely  the  same 
identical  articles.  It  depends  upon  the  point  of 
view  which  expression  is  used.  If  the  tariff-dike 
is  to  be  "revised"  downward  to  admit  "raw  ma- 
terials," it  must  simply  be  taken  down  for  every- 
thing. If  it  needs  to  be  put  up  to  protect  "finished 
products,"  it  must  be  put  up  to  protect  everything. 
When  the  learned  counsel  for  the  wily  plaintiff  says 
we  should  "revise"  the  dike  downward  as  to  raw 
materials,  he  means  either  that  we  should  take  it 
all  down  so  as  to  let  all  things  in  free,  or  take  it 
down  for  certain  things  only;  that  is  expose  the 
goods  of  one  American  producer  to  free  trade  in 
order  that  some  other  American  producer  may  add 
to  the  profit  he  already  has  from  his  protected  mar- 
ket here  any  profit  he  may  be  able  to  get  from  "free 
raw  materials"  and  sending  some  of  his  goods  to 
"the  markets  of  the  world."  Does  this  do  credit 
to  those  brain-cells  of  the  wily  plaintiff  which  rule 
or  are  supposed  to  rule  its  sense  of  justice? 

Eighth,  under  no  circumstances  could  our  man- 
ufacturers ever  capture  the  "markets  of  the  world," 
in  any  such  sense  that,  for  any  article  now  known 
to  commerce  they  could  monopolize  the  foreign 
market  for  any  great  length  of  time.  And  this  for 
the  simple  reason  that  there  is  no  article  known 
to  commerce  which,  with  the  same  machinery  and 
the  same  organization  as  those  employed  here,  can- 
not be  produced  in  the  outside  world  for  not  to 


exceed  one-half  of  the  lowest  possible  ultimate  cost 
in  the  United  States.  This  is  a  fact  too  well  known 
for  discussion  between  those  who  know  the  actual 
cost  of  production  in  the  outside  world.  Our  arti- 
cles of  greatest  export  are  wheat  and  cotton;  but 
this  happens  by  accident  in  the  world's  develop- 
ment. In  Europe,  Asia,  Africa  and  South  America 
are  hundreds  of  millions  of  acres  fully  as  well 
adapted  to  raising  wheat  and  cotton  as  the  best 
land  we  have;  while  in  Mexico,  next  door  and  Cen- 
tral America,  near  at  hand,  are  great  tracts  of 
cotton  soil  equal  to  our  cotton  belt;  and  these  for- 
eign fields  are  at  the  moment  almost  wholly  un- 
tilled.  The  conquest  of  the  earth  by  the  mechani- 
cal, industrial  and  commercial  age  in  which  we  now 
find  ourselves  began  in  such  a  way  as  to  pick  up 
our  lands  first  and  leave  these  broader  and  richer 
acres  for  later  invasion.  But  the  invasion  is  now 
at  the  door.  For  Mexico,  Central  America,  South 
America,  Africa  and  Asia  are  being  assailed  by 
the  world's  unfixed  capital  in  greater  and  greater 
volume;  and  billions  of  American  capital  are  in- 
terested in  this  movement  also,  and  for  the  express 
purpose,  as  we  have  said,  of  sending  back  to  our 
home  market  here  products  made  at  the  low  costs 
possible  from  working  virgin  soils  writh  the 
coolie  labor  of  the  world.  And  this  expatriated 
American  capital  stands  by  the  side  of  the  wily 
plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  and  holds  up  its 
hands  in  its  deadly  assault,  through  its  newspapers 
and  American  political  allies,  upon  the  tariff-dike, 
which  alone  stands  between  the  American  wage- 
producer  and  the  deluge. 

Your  Honors,  under  this  eighth  head,  let  us  note 
the  fact  that  the  countries  which  are  each  and  all 
our  competitors  in  this  desperate  battle  to  dom- 


100 

mate  "the  markets  of  the  world'  are  themselves, 
for  us,  "the  markets  of  the  world."  Also  that  in 
population,  capital,  skilled  labor,  soil,  and  all  other 
things  needful  for  production,  they  are  at  least  six- 
teen times  as  large  as  we  are.  Also  that  at  least 
one- third  of  their  combined  areas,  containing  the 
richest  soils,  the  most  valuable  mines,  the  deepest 
forests,  and  the  cheapest  and  most  industrious  labor 
in  the  world,  lies  within  the  tropics;  and  that  at 
least  two-thirds  of  the  combined  areas1  of  these  coun- 
tries lies  between  the  30th  parallels  of  north  and 
south  latitudes,  in  all  of  which  cost  of  subsistence, 
which  is  the  cost  of  production,  averages  not  over 
one-fifth  of  the  lowest  average  in  the  United  States. 
And  let  us  note  farther  one  more  fact,  namely,  that 
beginning  with  England,  where  wages  average  one- 
half  of  those  in  the  United  States;  and  crossing 
over  to  Germany,  where  wages  average  but  one- 
third  of  what  they  do  here;  to  France  where  the 
average  is  nearly  the  same  as  in  Germany;  and  to 
Italy,  where  the  average  wages  are  but  one-fourth 
the  American;  and  going  eastward  to  the  shore  of 
the  Pacific  and  to  Japan,  wages  become  lower  and 
lower  than  they  are  in  the  United  States.  In 
Japan,  the  last  country  before  we  reach  American 
territory  again,  from  80  to  90  per  cent,  of  the  labor 
in  its  manifold  factories  shipping  goods  here  are 
women  and  girls,  the  women  being  paid  11  to  12 
cents  for  a  11-hour  day  and  the  girls  from  7  to  8 
cents  for  the  same  period;  and  the  factories  which 
employ  these  women  buy  their  so-called  "raw  ma- 
terial" in  the  rest  of  the  world,  some  of  it  from  us, 
pay  the  freight  from  abroad  to  their  factories,  and 
back  across  over  the  tariff-dike  to  our  shops  and 
stores  here  in  the  United  States,  and  then  undersell 
here  under  our  very  noses  anything  that  we  make  of 


101 

a  like  nature.  These  Japanese  factories  are  water- 
ing our  civilization  now.  What  would  they  do  if 
the  tariff-dike  were  "revised?"  Looking  at  the  mat- 
ter from  the  standpoint  of  percentages  and  taking 
100  as  the  standard  wage-payment  when  countries 
are  compared,  since  we  pay  the  highest  wages  in 
the  world,  our  wagescale  would  be  denoted  by  100. 
Now,  it  is  not  too  extravagant  to  say  that,  taking 
the  world  around,  the  average  of  the  foreign  pay- 
rolls is  not  over  one-fifth  of  ours  for  the  same 
labor. 

Therefore,  if  our  wage-rate  is  denoted  by  100, 
the  average  wage-rate  in  the  world  outside,  being 
but  twenty  per  cent,  of  ours,  should  be  denoted  by 
20. 

Now,  your  Honors,  the  cost  of  everything  in  this 
world  from  top  to  bottom  is  the  cost  of  labor — 
somebody's  labor.  Therefore  the  price  of  an  article 
contains  in  it  the  wages  of  every  person  who  has 
had  anything  to  do  with  its  production,  followed 
from  where  the  so-called  raw-material  was  first 
contracted  for,  even  from  the  surveying  and  pur- 
chase of  the  title  of  a  mine,  a  farm,  or  a  timber 
tract,  all  the  way  down  to  where  the  price 
which  attracts  our  attention  was  realized.  And 
wages  are  merely  the  cost  of  the  wage-producer's 
subsistence.  Where,  therefore  in  view  of  the  cost 
of  it's  keep  as  shown  by  wages,  life  is  only  20 %  as 
expensive  as  ours,  goods  are  eventually  going  to  be 
but  20%  as  expensive  as  ours  in  the  making.  And 
a  prudent  estimate  would  discount  any  temporary 
advantage  we  may  have  in  machinery  or  other 
things.  Well,  then,  20%  of  ours  is  the  average 
cost  of  goods  in  the  outside  world  as  fixed  by  a  pru- 
dent estimate.  Now,  your  Honors,  as  a  broad  prop- 
osition, does  it  look  reasonable  that  the  world's 


102 

capital,  considered  as  an  aggregate  and  armed  with 
an  executive  head,  is  going  to  be  satisfied  to  furnish 
for  the  "markets  of  the  world"  goods  which  cost  it 
$1  to  make  here  in  the  United  States,  when  it  can 
make  the  same  supply  in  the  outside  world  at  a  cost 
of  20c?  For,  in  view  of  what  the  wily  plaintiff, 
the  Importing  Trust  says,  that,  in  order  to  "capture 
the  markets  of  the  world,"  we  merely  need  to  "re- 
vise" our  tariff  downwards  and  give  our  manufact- 
urers the  benefit  of  "free  raw  materials,"  the  broad 
proposition  we  have  to  consider  is  to  make  our  $1 
beat  the  world's  20c  cost. 

Now,  if  the  index  number  of  average  cost  in  the 
United  States  stands  at  100  and  the  average  cost 
in  the  rest  of  the  world  at  20,  supposing  we  let 
in  free  over  our  tariff-dike,  not  here  and  there  an 
ingredient  in  the  products  of  our  manufacturers, 
but  each  and  every  ingredient  entering  therein; 
how  far,  after  paying  freights  and  insurance  on 
their  "raw  materials"  from  abroad,  would  this  help 
our  manufacturers  reduce  their  cost-100  so  that 
the  product  ready  to  be  shipped  to  "the  markets 
of  the  world,"  would  cost  but,  say,  19  instead  of 
the  present  cost  abroad  of  20?  Because  in  the  dif- 
ference of  1  is  embraced  the  profit  of  our  manu- 
facturers, together  with  freights  and  'insurance 
from  here  abroad,  not  to  speak  of  the  tariff 
which  American  goods  must  pay  foreign  govern- 
ments to  enter  the  "markets  of  the  world."  For  it 
must  be  remembered  that,  if  we  are  to  capture  "the 
markets  of  the  world"  through  "free  raw  mater- 
ials," we  must  pay  freights,  insurance,  cartages, 
and  expressages  on  "free  raw  materials"  both  to 
and  from  our  ports;  whereas  the  foreigner  who 
manufacturers  at  20  already  has  among  his  sup- 
plies these  raw  materials  which  we  buy  of  him  and 


103 

he  therefore  has  to  pay  no  tariffs,  freights,  or  insur- 
ance on  them,  20  representing  every  expense  of  pro- 
ducing his  article,  including  profit,  to  the  point  of 
sale  in  the  market.  We  repeat,  how  far  could  "free 
raw  materials"  help  our  manufacturers  to  the 
"markets  of  the  world"  under  these  circumstances? 

Another  thing  which  we  have  not  noted,  and  it 
is  the  most  important  item  of  all :  If  our  manufact- 
urers had  "free  raw  materials"  at  a  cost  of  20,  how 
would  they  also  get  at  20  the  labor  necessary  to 
make  up  their  materials  into  finished  products? 

We  must  remember  that  labor  here  is  at  100 
instead  of  20  and  that  it  is1  the  most  expensive  in- 
gredient in  the  product.  Ah,  what  does  the  learned 
counsel  for  the  wily  plaintiff  remark?  Does  he  say 
that  letting  in  raw  materials  free  would  liberate 
so  many  of  our  wage-producers  from  other  employ- 
ments that  they  also  would  be  glad  to  work  at  20? 
Tha,t  is  just  what  we  thought  and  what  we  have 
been  coming  to,  namely,  that  "free  raw  materials" 
are  after  all  our  own  finished  products,  and  their 
free  importation  cannot  be  of  any  use  to  our  man- 
ufacturers in  "capturing  the  markets  of  the  world/' 
unless  we  have  "free  raw  labor"  also ;  and  that  both 
what  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  and 
the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Exporting  Trust,  are  really 
fighting  for  is,  not  to  let  American  goods  out,  but 
to  let  foreign  goods  in. 

For  the  purpose  of  profiting ;  either  with  or  with- 
out a  dike,  the  position  of  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Ex- 
porting Trust,  is  unique.  It  does  not  like  the  tariff- 
dike;  because  that  takes  the  profit  from  the  goods 
made  in  its  foreign  plants  at  wage-20,  by  making 
it  pay  wages  here  equal  to  wage-100.  But  while  the 
tariff-dike  is  high,  the  foreign-American,  behind 
the  dike,  running  his  American  plant,  gets  here  at 


104 

least  the  American  price  for  whatever  goods  he 
sells  in  competition  with  other  American  producers 
who  have  no  foreign  plants.  Meanwhile,  he  works 
all  the  time  for  "free  raw  materials,"  in  order,  if 
successful,  to  get  what  advantage  he  may  against 
his  American  competitors  of  less  power  as  whole- 
sale purchasers  of  material.  But  he  greatly  pre- 
fers the  dike  to  be  so  broken  not  that  the  materials 
of  which  his  product  is  made  may  be  admitted  free, 
but  the  finished  product  itself  from  his  foreign 
plant;  and,  if  he  succeeds  in  smashing  the  dike,  he 
closes  his  American  factories  and  runs  his  foreign 
branches  on  double  time,  and,  by  making  at  wage- 
20  and  sending  his  goods  in  here,  drowns  out  com- 
petition from  American  factories  that  have  no  for- 
eign branches.  He  then  works  our  market  here 
from  the  100  price  all  the  way  down  to  the  lowest 
limit  in  the  falling  market  that  always1  follows  a 
break  in  our  wage-schedule.  Thus  the  Exporting 
Trust  clams  the  tide  both  out  and  in. 

Ninth.  We  have  given  eight  reasons  why  we 
question  the  good  faith  of  these  wily  plaintiffs  in 
their  crusade  against  the  tariff-dike  to  "capture  the 

markets  of  the  world;"  but  the  ninth  it  soems  to 

/  ' 

us  should  appeal  to  the  hard  common  sense  of  your 
Honors  as  well  as  to  your  legal  acumen;  and  it 
is  this :  We  are  here  a  country  of  100.  That  refers 
to  cost,  price,  wages,  and  business-volume.  For,  as 
to  the  business-volume,  we  have  already  said  that 
the  entire  value  of  the  country's  products  is  the 
wage  it  pays  itself  for  doing  its  own  work;  and 
"business"  is  the  mere  act  of  making  this  payment 
through  our  merchants  who  hand  out  the  goods. 
Tn  other  words  the  product-volume  is  the  wage-vol- 
ume, and  the  wage-volume  is  the  business-volume. 
Now,  wo  think  we  have  proven  that  to  disturb  the 


105 

tariff -dike  at  all  is  to  let  in  foreign  goods  at  cost- 
20,  hence  wage-20 — as  cost  is  all  somebody's  wages, 
— hence  business-volume-20.  Therefore,  in  the 
measure  that  "revision"  of  the  dike  increases  for- 
eign competing  imports,  it  reduces  our  business- 
volume  from  100  towards  20.  It  follows,  of  course, 
that  if  the  dike  is  so  broken  that  there  is  no  pro- 
tection left  against  foreign  goods,  our  business- 
volume  must  land  at  20,  that  is,  at  wage-20,  in 
which  costs  of  subsistence  come  in  on  the  basis  of 
sustenance-costs  in  tropical  and  semi-tropical 
areas;  and  these  are  so  low  that  we  shall  die  of 
starvation  before  we  reach  them.  This  great  fact, 
viz.,  the  reduction  of  the  volume  of  our  domestic 
business  pari  passu  with  the  influx  of  foreign  com- 
peting goods,  explains  all  "over-production,"  "scar- 
city of  money,"  "high  price  of  gold,"  "dullness  of 
trade,"  "depression  in  business  circles,"  "industrial 
decline,"  "hard  times,"  "panics,"  and  poverty, 
which  always  follow  any  break  in  our  tariff-dike. 
The  wily  plaintiffs  know  this  as  well  as  we  and 
therefore  know  that  for  us  to  "capture  the  markets 
of  the  world,"  by  "revising"  the  dike,  is  to  wipe  out 
our  domestic  business. 

Tenth.  This  reason  for  doubting  the  good  faith 
of  the  wily  plaintiffs  is  their  knowledge  of  the  con- 
ditions upon  which  capital  remains  at  work  in  this 
country.  For,  as  we  have  said,  we  are  a  cost-100 
country;  the  world  at  large,  against  the  whole  of 
which  we  must  buck  to  hold  our  own  domestic  mar- 
ket in  low-dike  times,  is  a  cost-20  country.  Now  the 
only  condition  upon  which  capital  will  work  any- 
where is  that  of  making  a  profit  at  least  equal  to 
that  made  by  capital  in  similar  linos  elsewhere.  A 
patriotic,  nation-building  policy  would  make  the 
tariff-dike  so  high  that  it  would  make  higher  than 


106 

the  domestic  cost  the  cost  of  landing  in  our  market 
the  goods  of  the  cheapest  country  in  the  world.    In 
other  words,  no  foreign  goods  would  be  admitted  at 
so  low  a  tariff  considering  their  cost,  as  to  stand  on 
equal  terms  with  domestic  goods.    Citizens  of  this 
country,  living  quietly  under  its  laws,  supporting 
its     government,     submitting  to  taxation  for  the 
maintenance  of  its  institutions,  and  ready  to  spring 
to  its  armed  defense  in  case  of  need,  ought,  in  all 
equity,  to  be  preferred  in  our  markets  over  aliens 
abroad  who  do  nothing  at  all  for  the  country's  good. 
But  the  only  condition  upon  which  capital  will  re- 
main at  work  here  is  that  a  tariff-dike  raises  the 
foreign  cost  to  that  of  the  domestic.     Otherwise 
active  capital  here  has  the  alternative  of  either  mi- 
grating to  lower-cost  areas  or  being  dissipated  into 
the  hands  and  added  to  the  capital  of  its  competi- 
tors abroad.     For  it  is  plain  that,  with  a  "revenue- 
tariff"  dike  only,  the  capital  invested  by  our  prop- 
erty-producers in  making  goods  would  not  be  re- 
turned to  their  keeping  in  their  price.     If  their 
goods  sold  at  all  against  lower-cost    goods,     from 
their  cost-100  goods  they  would  get  back  but  a  por- 
tion of  their  cost,  the  balance  remaining  with  the 
American  purchaser.    If  American  purchasers  con- 
tinued to  give  them  preference  at  the  same  price  as 
the  goods  offered  by  the  Importing  Trust,  it  would 
all  end  by  our  property-producers  losing  all  their 
capital  to  their  customers  and  stopping  business; 
which  would  leave  the  field  entirely  to  the  Import- 
ing Trust ;  and  thereupon  the  money  from  our  prop- 
erty-producers' capital,  scattered  into  the  hands  of 
the  American  purchasers,  would  now  be  spent  by 
the  latter  with  the  Importing  Trust,  which,  nfter 
deducting  its  commissions,  would  send  it  to  the 
foreign  producer,  who  would  use  it  in  making  more 


107 

goods  wherewith  to  destroy  any  of  our  industries 
still  left  standing.* 

In  this  way,  with  the  tariff-dike  "revised"  and 
made  lower  than  would  equalize  the  lowest  foreign 
cost  to  cost-100,  our  capital  would  go  to  foreign 
producers.  But  our  capitalists  would  not  wait  for 
that.  They  would  either  discharge  their  wage- 
producers,  close  their  factories,  save  as  much  as 
possible  of  their  cash  and  credit  and  wait  for  the 
next  presidential  campaign  to  restore  the  dike;  or, 
which  is  more  likely,  they  would  go  abroad  with 
their  capital,  best  skilled  labor,  machinery  and 
methods.  And  the  great  majority  of  our  own  wage- 
producers  and  the  aforetime  property-producers  of 
the  smaller  sizes,  would  be  turned  out  to  live  di- 
rectly from  the  soil  like  the  rabbits  and  woodchucks 
and  other  such  "small  deer."  This  would  cost  us 
our  civilization  and  millions  of  our  workers'  lives, 
cut  off  by  breaking  connection  between  food  and 
stomachs. 

From  the  foregoing  ten  reasons,  all  well  known 
to  the  wily  plaintiffs,  we  think  we  have  proven  that 


*  A  low.tariff  dike  does  not  wait  for  the  exhaustion  of  our 
capital  before  closing  our  factories.  It  has  been  the  custom  of 
the  Importing  Trust,  at  every  prospective  lowering  of  the  dike 
below  the  protective  limit,  to  leave  with  our  wholesale  mer- 
chants a  written  guarantee  to  furnish  any  goods  in  its  line  at 
something  like  10  per  cent,  less  than  the  lowest  offering  of 
American  makers  no  matter  what  This  method  has  secured 
the  American  demand  for  the  supply  of  the  Importing  Trust 
from  the  very  start  and  caused  the  almost  immediate  closing  of 
all  American  factories  thus  exposed  to  the  competition  of  the 
Importing  Trust.  This  practice  accounts  for  the  fact  that  It 
was  no  sooner  known,  in  November,  1892,  that  Mr.  Cleveland,  a 
free  trader,  and  a  Congress,  free  trade  in  both  branches,  would 
control  tariff  legislation  thereafter,  than  the  country  was 
seized  with  a  violent  panic  and  factories  were  closed  on  all 
hands  and  working  forces  of  those  still  open  heavily  reduced. 
Even  as  earlv  as  that,  it  is  safe  to  say,  the  Importing  Trust  had 
Its  underbidding  schedules  in  the  hands  of  American  whole- 
salers, which  was  sufficient  to  discount  the  impending  free- 
trade  legislation  and  make  the  actual  business  condition  of  the 
country  the  same  as  if  such  legislation  had  already  taken  place. 


108 

these  wily  plaintiffs'  know  that  they  are  putting 
forth  a  poisoned  bait  when  they  invite  our  property- 
and-wage-producers  into  their  trap  of  "the  world's 
markets." 

And  your  Honors,  we  think  you  will  bear  with  us 
when  we  say  that,  using  the  term  in  the  same 
sense  in  which  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing 
Trust,  uses  it  against  all  our  great  industries,  the 
wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  and  the  wily 
plaintiff,  the  Exporting  Trust,  making  common 
cause,  form  the  wickedest  trust  in  the  world;  and 
we  verily  believe  that  an  inspection  of  the  brain- 
cells  of  this  wickedest  trust  in  the  world  would  re- 
veal the  same  nature  as  that  shown  by  the  brain- 
cells  of  the  late  lamented  Kiug  of  the  Cannibal 
Islands. 


XV 


IN  KEEPING  A  NEWSPAPER  CLAQUE  CONSTANTLY  EM- 
PLOYED IN  CULTIVATING  A  PUBLIC  OPINION 
AGAINST  THE  TARIFF-DIKE,  THE  WILY  PLAINTIFF, 
THE  IMPORTING  TRUST,  IS  WORKING  FOR  ITS  OWN 
POCKET  ALL  THE  TIME. 

\ 

Your  Honors,  in  and  out  of  season,  especially  in 
the  great  importing  cities,  where  the  wily  plaintiff, 
the  Importing  Trust,  is  almost  supreme  in  power, 
you  read  in  the  newspapers,  slurs  of  all  sorts 
against  the  policy  which  builds  tariff-dikes,  from 
those  which  damn  by  faint  praise,  which  often  ap- 
pear in  newspapers  pretending  to  be  protectionist, 
to  those  which  denounce  the  tariff -dike  as  the  work 
of  "robber-barons,"  purchasing  Congress  through 


109 

compaign  contributions.  We  should  study  this  hos- 
tility to  the  tariff-dike,  and  the  purpose  to  destroy 
it,  which  in  the  breast  of  the  Importing  Trust  never 
slumbers  or  sleeps.  The  following  appeared  not 
long  ago  in  a  newspaper  published  in  our  greatest 
importing  city,  a  newspaper  which  for  a  century 
has  been  a  tool  of  the  Importing  Trust  to  under- 
mine American  Production : 


"The  hide  of  the  stand-patter  is  extremely  tough  and 
its  sense  of  humor  is  slight,  judging  from  the  reply  of 
the  Kennebec  Journal  to  this  sarcasm  of  the  Waterville 
(Me.)  Sentinel:  'The  idea  that  the  Dingley  tariff  is  re- 
sponsible for  all  business  advancement  robs  the  Almighty 
of  the  credit  of  all  of  the  natural  blessings  which  He  has 
bestowed  upon  us,  and  robs  mankind  of  the  credit  of 
having  accomplished  anything  for  itself  by  industry,  fru- 
gality, and  enterprise.'  The  reply  is:  The  people  of 
Maine  know  that  they  are  enjoying  to-day,  under  the 
Dingley  tariff  law,  the  greatest  period  of  prosperity  in 
their  history." 


This  is  an  attempt,  your  Honors,  to  belittle  tlie 
work  of  the  tariff-dike,  by  accusing  the  Almighty 
of  favoritism  to  our  country  in  giving  it  "natural 
blessings,"  the  like  of  which  He  has  given  to  no 
others  of  His  children.  It  does  not  need  to  be 
pointed  out  that  this  is  little  short  of  an  impeach- 
ment of  the  Most  High  on  the  ground  of  injustice  to 
the  rest  of  the  world.  Of  course,  the  purpose  of 
the  article  is  on  the  surface.  It  is  merely  to  make 
light  of  the  effect  of  the  Dingley  dike  upon  our 
prosperity.  Every  one  acquainted  with  our  indus- 
trial, commercial,  and  financial  history  knows  that 
whenever  the  Importing  Trust  has  succeeded  in 
blinding  and  maddening  our  people  so  that  they 
have  broken  or  "revised"  the  dike,  our  "natural 
blessings"  are  worthless  as  against  the  artificial  or 
other  blessings  of  the  countries  whose  payrolls  are 
less  than  half  as  high  as  ours.  As  to  our  "indus-, 


110 

try,  frugality,  and  enterprise,"  they  are  about  as 
effective  in  stemming  the  tide  of  foreign  surplus 
products  which  rolls  over  our  broken  dike,  as  the 
efforts  of  a  blind  puppy  in  stemming  Niagara 
Palls. 

Here  is  another  sample  of  a  dike-breaker: 


'  'A  tariff  mast  be  changed  to  meet  conditions,  and  only 
the  most  myopic  'stand-patter'  will  contend  that  our 
trade  and  industrial  relations  in  1907  "bear  any  close  re- 
semblance to  our  trade  and  industrial  relations  ten  years 
ago.  The  Dingley  rates  are  in  many  cases  out  of  touch 
with  present  national  needs,  and  both  for  purposes  of 
revenue  and  for  purposes  of  rational  protection  could  be 
altered  to  advantage.  The  great  maiority  of  the  voters 
in  the  country  are  now  convinced  that  protection  has 
been  a  wise  and  helnful  policy.  They  want  to  continue 
to  anply  the  principle,  but  they  want  to  see  it  applied 
intelligently,  fairly,  and  for  the  greatest  good  of  the 
greatest  number." 


Your  Honors,  when  the  Importing  Trust  wants 
to  do  a  very  dirty  thing  to  our  client,  American 
Production,  it  piously  appeals,  through  some  pro- 
tectionist newspaper,  to  the  interest  alleged  to  be 
the  "greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number."  We  are 
sorely  afraid,  your  Honors,  that  the  brain-cells  of 
us  all  still  have  some  likeness  to  those  we  had  when 
we  all  belonged  more  or  less  to  the  genus  Vmtor- 
liomo,  an  animal  which,  sometimes  all  by  his  lone- 
some, sometimes  in  pairs,  and  sometimes  in  great 
numbers,  but  all  on  one  and  the  same  "job,"  in 
olden  times  infested  our  highways.  When  these 
worthies  saw  an  innocent  but  rich  wayfarer  making 
tracks  in  their  direction,  thev  hastily  took  a  vote  on 
the  subject  which  invariably  decided  that  "the 
greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number,"  of  their 
crowd,  demanded  that  they  should  pounce  on  the 
innocent  but  rich  wayfarer,  who  was  himself  mere- 
Iv  "a  malefactor  of  great  wealth,"  and  divide 


Ill 

equally  between  themselves  his  clothing  and  other 
goods. 

This  is  the  sort  of  a  vote  which  before  announc- 
ing that  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number 
— of  importers — demands  a  "revision"  of  the  Ding- 
ley  dike  the  members  of  the  Importing  Trust  are 
taking  among  themselves  now.  The  item  last  men- 
tioned ends  as  follows : 


"But  whether  'revision'  is  to  come  a  year  sooner  or  a 
year  later,  the  fact  is  clear  that  the  country  is  beginning 
to  think  the  time  is  near  at  hand  for  overhauling  the 
tariff  of  1897." 


"The  country,"  your  Honors,  means  the  Import- 
ing Trust.  When  it  is  manufacturing  public  opin- 
ion it  bows  to  itself  in  this  way  through  newspapers 
such  as  the  one  last  quoted.  The  taking  way  in 
which  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  uses 
this  word  "country"  is  the  secret  of  its  fooling  so 
many  people  all  the  time. 

Here  is  another  specimen  of  the  public-opinion 
makers  circulated  through  its  newspapers  by  the 
wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust : 


' '  This  newspaper  does  not  think  there  is  any  excuse  for 
the  United  States  longer  shutting  its  eyes  against  the 
fact  that  the  whole  world  is  engaged  in  tariff  adjust- 
ments, and  that  an  ossified  tariff  involves  the  menace  of 
an  ossified  commerce." 


This  paper  was  rooting  for  "revision"  when  it 
published  this;  and  "revision"  never  means  any- 
thing but  "reduction;"  and  is  never  used  by  any- 
body but  people  who  are  opposed  to  our  tariff -dike. 
But  in  order  to  catch  more  crabs  in  its  net,  the 
wily  plaintiff  baits  the  net  merely  with  "revision.'' 
That,  it  thinks,  will  fool  the  mollusks.  When  it 
says  "the  whole  world  is  engaged  in  tariff  adjust- 


112 

inents,"  it  wants  you  to  think,  your  Honors,  that 
the  whole  world  is  reducing  its  tariffs;  whereas  the 
whole  world  is  raising  its  tariffs  against  foreign 
goods,  not  by  way  of  retaliation,  but  because  it  is 
getting  the  fashion  for  nations  to  do  their  own  work 
and  pay  themselves  therefor.  When  in  this  article, 
it  refers  to  the  "menace  of  an  ossified  commerce," 
it  wants  you  to  think  that  "commerce/'  meaning 
foreign  commerce,  is  that  by  which  we  live;  and 
that  if  we  don't  watch  out  and  give  the  Importing 
Trust  a  show  we  shall  find  ourselves  steering  up 
Salt  River.  Whereas,  the  fact  is  that  foreign  com- 
merce is  our  very  national  bane;  the  source  of  all 
our  panics  and  hard  times,  of  treachery  to  our  na- 
tional interests  from  within  and  without,  the  cause 
of  the  Revolution,  the  WTar  of  1812,  our  Great  Civil 
War,  the  Cuban  Treaty,  the  rooting  for  Philip- 
pine free  trade,  the  late  German  Agreemeent,  and 
all  the  other  mischiefs  of  which  our  nation  has  ever 
been  the  victim,  including  the  periodical  obsession 
of  our  industries  by  these  wily  plaintiffs,  and  the 
turning  back  of  the  Clock  of  American  Progress 
ten  years  at  a  time.  That  is  what  foreign  commerce 
does  for  us. 

Here  is  a  sample  of  dike-busting,  which  like  all 
the  rest  of  the  same  kidney  is  specially  constructed 
to  conceal  the  voice  of  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Im- 
porting Trust,  which  speaks  through  it : 

"A  proposal  for  a  revival  of  Democratic  tariff  reform 
is  at  least  in  the  line  of  common  sense.  When  stiff- 
necked  old  Assyrian  hunkers  like  Joe  Cannon  come  to 
admit  the  tariff  is  susceptible  of  improvement  and  is  not 
a  flawless  and  inspired  whole,  there  must  be  clear  proof 
of  a  popular  desire  for  tariff  revision.  At  any  rate  the 
Western  Fanners  have  discovered  that  a  high  protective 
tariff  is  not  a  heaven-born  means  of  getting  rich  without 
injuring  anybody  but  the  accursed  foreigners." 

The  thing  particular  to  note  about  this  last  ex- 


113 

ample  of  tariff-busting  editorial  comment,  plainly 
showing  as  it  does  the  dictation  of  the  wily  plain- 
tiff, the  Importing  Trust,  is  its  bell-wether  char- 
acter. You  know,  your  Honors,  when  you  want  a 
lot  of  thoughtless  folks  to  join  you  in  some  damn- 
foolishness,  it  is  very  important  to  make  them  think 
they  will  only  be  doing  what  a  whole  crowd  of  other 
people  are  doing  or  have  already  done;  therefore, 
you  will  observe  that  the  editor  first  flatters  his 
readers  that  they  will  only  be  in  the  line  of  "com- 
mon sense"  if  they  assist  in  "a  revival  of  Democratic 
tariff  reform;"  for  "common  sense"  is  supposed  to 
be  a  sense  that  is  common.  This  establishes  the 
feeling  of  community  and  large  numbers.  Then 
see  how  quickly  this  allusion  to  "common  sense"  is 
followed  by  the  assurance  that  any  fellow  who  goes 
in  for  "tariff  revision"  will  only  be  joining  in  a 
"popular  desire;"  and  the  editor  has  no  sooner  rung 
you  in  among  the  great  throng  of  the  popularly- 
desiring  than  he  makes  you  a  member  of  the  great 
guild  of  "Western  Farmers,"  who  have  discovered 
what  a  heinous  thing  is  the  protective  tariff;  and 
at  the  same  time  the  editor  causes  your  heart  to 
swell  large  with  pity  for  the  poor  foreigners  whom 
you  have  so  unjustly  cussed  out  aforetime.  This 
last  is  a  real  artistic  touch,  your  Honors.  It  is  very 
seldom  that  a  hireling  of  the  wily  plaintiff,  the 
Importing  Trust,  can  kill  so  many  dollars  with  the 
same  pen-full  of  ink.  For  we  suppose,  your  Hon- 
ors, that  these  scribblers  against  American  Pro- 
duction, our  worthy  client,  are  paid  in  proportion 
to  the  number  of  blows  in  the  same  paragraph  they 
can  give  to  the  tariff-dike.  Note,  your  Honors,  the 
majestic  climax  elaborated  by  this  gifted  stabber  of 
American  Production:  He  first  modestly  brings  in 
"tariff  reform;"  then  with  a  bolder  note  broaches 


114 

"tariff  revision;"  and  fetches  up  the  rear  with  a 
roar  in  your  ear  against  the  "protective  tariff." 
Very  artistic,  your  Honors,  and  very  effective;  a 
first-class  example  of  the  virus  of  hatred  for  Amer- 
ican Production  injected  systematically  in  the 
veins  of  public  opinion  by  the  vsily  plaintiff,  the 
Importing  Trust.  And  so  adroit,  too!  Why,  bless 
your  hearts,  your  Honors,  the  newspaper  that  con- 
tained this  editorial  counts  as  a  Republican  pro- 
tectionist newspaper!  And  when  "protectionists" 
themselves  damn  the  dike  isn't  that  enough? 

Now  listen  to  what  comes  next,  your  Honors.  It 
is  a  rich  bit  from  an  Importing  Trust  mouthpiece 
of  over  a  hundred  years  standing.  The  occasion  is 
the  discovery  by  our  State  Department  of  what  this 
newspaper  calls  "A  Useful  Cudgel"  with  which  to 
"get  back  at"  nations  that  do  as  Germany  has  been 
doing:  Double  their  tariffs  in  order  to  halve  them 
again  as  a  concession  to  national  fools  like  our- 
selves who  "lie  down,"  as  we  did  in  the  German 
Agreement.  Kindly  listen : 

"Originally  bestowed  [the  'cudgel']  to  enable  the 
President  to  retaliate  for  German  discrimination  against 
our  meats,  this  power  was  speedily  forgotten  when  that 
dispute  was  adjusted.  It  is  now  to  be  used  against  other 
nations,  as  the  President  shall  determine.  We  see  once 
more  how  tariffs  are  the  most  perfect  means  of  producing 
concord  and  friendly  feeling  between  nations  and  what 
measures  of  good- will  grow  out  of  them." 

This  is  a  gem,  your  Honors,  if  you  consider  its 
object;  which,  of  course,  is  neither  more  nor  less 
than  to  assist  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing 
Trust,  to  another  inning  as  the  monopolist  of  our 
domestic  market.  It  breathes  the  "lie-down"  pol- 
icy, so  well  illustrated  in  the  German  agreement 
before  mentioned.  It  assumes  that  the  tariff-dike 
is  only  a  matter  of  caprice  or  an  incident  of  politi- 
cal vicissitudes  such  as  this  poor  land  is  the  victim 


115 

of.  It  reeks  with  the  sentiment  that  the  way  for  a 
nation  to  get  along  is  to  open  its  markets  to  all 
other  nations.  And  there  is  not  an  argument  in  it. 
It  aims  at  a  very  low  mark,  namely,  that  part  of 
the  public  devouring  newspapers  which  nourish  no 
brain-cells  of  the  higher  tiers.  It  is  of  the  sugges- 
tive order,  a  sort  of  hypnotic  pabulum  for  those 
born  too  tired  to  think  for  themselves.  Don't  argue 
the  case  at  all.  Just  keep  telling  the  country  it  is 
a  fool  to  maintain  a  tariff-dike;  keep  suggesting 
that  "concord  and  friendly  feeling  between  na- 
tions" is  really  all  our  stomachs  need;  that  tariff- 
dike  bread  and  butter  is  a  delusion  and  a  snare! 
And  by  and  by  enough  heads  will  have  been  filled 
with  these  hypnotic  fumes  to  promise  success  for 
another  Importing  Trust  Campaign  against  the 
tariff-dike. 

Your  Honors,  there  is  another  method  of  attack- 
ing the  tariff-dike,  very  dear  to  the  wily  plaintiff, 
the  Importing  Trust;  and  it  is  even  more  danger- 
ous than  that  illustrated  by  the  editorial  extracts 
which  we  have  just  read.  For  it  does  not  even  men- 
tion the  tariff-dike.  This  method  is  that  of  ethere- 
alizing  the  sources  of  our  prosperity.  Our  prosper- 
ity "comes  out  of  everywhere  into  here.r  It  could 
not  come  from  a  hard-headed  and  intelligent  policy 
such  as  that  which,  by  an  import  tariff-dike  and  an 
export-tariff  dam,  would  confine  the  whole  Ameri- 
can demand  to  the  American  supply  and  the  Ameri- 
can supply  to  the  American  demand.  Oh,  no;  to 
account  for  prosperity  and  adversity,  the  wily 
plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  tells  ghost-stories 
through  its  newspapers.  Here  is  one  of  them : 


"The  fact  we  know  to  be  that  men  and  women  fall 
in  love  by  instinct  or  inexplicable  passion;  and  that  their 
later  explanations  of  the  precise  reason  are  rather  laugh- 


116 

able  afterthoughts.     May  it  not  be  the  same  with  the 
emotions  about  finance  and  the  state  of  trade? 

"That  feeling  has  a  great  deal  to  do  with  prosperity, 
and  its  lapsing,  is  an  old  story.  Sentiment  is  not  quoted 
on  the  exchanges,  but  it  has  much  to  do  with  fixing 
prices.  A  comtortable  sense  gets  into  the  hearts  of  people 
that  they  are  increased  in  goods  and  have  need  of  noth- 
ing; and  then  they  are  prosperous,  partly  because  they 
think  they  are.  But  when  the  reverse  feeling  sets  in, 
they  sometimes  cease  to  be  prosperous,  partly  because 
they  think  they  are  so  no  longer.  And  this  is,  at  present, 
perhaps  the  most  critical  element  in  the  commercial  situa- 
tion. People  begin  to  feel  it  in  their  bones  that  we  are 
in  for  a  period  or  trade  depression.  They  begin  to  talk  to 
each  other  about  it;  repeat  in  private  conversations  their 
belief  that  we  have  passed  the  crest  of  prosperity;  and 
little  by  little  create  a  sentiment,  an  expectation,  which 
may  be  unfounded  in  strict  reason,  but  which  nevertheless 
must  be  reckoned  with  and  is  certain  to  have  a  powerful 
influence. ' ' 

This  is  an  editorial  from,  the  regular  staff  of  the 
Importing  Trust.  Nevertheless  its  writer  is  a  poet. 
He  reduces  to  a  Christian  Science  basis  the  whole 
matter  of  the  prosperity  or  adversity  of  a  country. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  sin,  sickness,  and  death. 
"Feel"  you  are  prosperous  and  prosperous  you  will 
be.  "Feel"  the  contrary,  and  your  financial  name 
is  Dennis.  It  is  all  in  mind;  no  matter  anywhere 
in  it.  A  man  does  not  "feel"  prosperous  because 
he  knows  that  he  will  get  a  little  more  than  a  dol- 
lar back  for  every  dollar  he  invests  in  staple  pro- 
duction in  this  country.  He  does  not  "feel"  unpros1- 
perous,  because  he  discovers  that  a  leak  in  the  dike 
has  knocked  his  domestic  market  endwise,  and  that 
if  he  lays  out  a  dollar  in  making  goods  here  he  is 
certain  to  get  back  but  75c  in  his  price.  Commer- 
cial facts  are  nowhere;  "comfortable  sense"  which 
clambers  into  his  heart  makes  prosperity;  and  a 
"reverse  feeling"  makes  adversity.  Somewhere 
away  off  in  the  sweet  empyrean  sits  a  beneficent 
angel  giving  him  absent  treatment;  and,  lo,  he  is 
happy  and  prosperous.  But,  presto !  the  beneficent 
angel  is  out  of  business,  and  somewhere  else,  away 


117 

off  in  the  smoking,  smoldering  pit  of  woe's  inferno 
sits  malicious  animal  magnetism,  treating  him  ab- 
sently, and  the  milk  of  prosperity  goes  sour. 
Brains  and  their  judicious  use  no  longer  affect! 
human  affairs.  Oh,  bother  them  all!  Pack  them 
in  your  grip  and  send  them  back  by  American  Ex- 
press to  Eden !  They  are  out  of  date  frippery  from 
antedeluvian  times!  No  such  things  as  a  tariff- 
dike,  keeping  out  the  foreign  surplus  deluge  from 
your  industrial  gardens,  could  possibly  have  any- 
thing to  do  with  your  prosperity.  Just  take  a  good 
dose  of  "feeling"  and  your  prosperity  will  glow 
from  within  you  out  of  you  like  a  sun. 

Your  Honors,  with  great  good  reason  have  we 
dubbed  the  Importing  Trust  the  "wily  plaintiff." 
Such  newspaper- work  as  we  have  just  described  is 
meant  for  two  things,  viz.,  on  the  one  hand,  to 
ignore  the  dike  entirely,  if  the  object  is  a  general 
impressing  of  the  idea  that  it  has  nothing  to  do 
with  our  prosperity;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  when 
the  wily  plaintiff  has  once  more  destroyed  the  dike 
with  a  keg  of  anti-"trust"  dynamite,  to  cover  the 
tell-tale  footprints  of  the  Importing  Trust  up  to 
and  away  from  its  job. 

There  is  no  doubt,  your  Honors,  that  the  pres- 
ent administration  is  a  mere  auxiliary  of  the 
Importing  Trust.  The  Cuban  Treaty,  the  dis- 
charge of  Appraiser  Wakeman,  the  German 
Agreement,  and  the  measures1  to  promote  smug- 
gling generally,  the  strenuous  effort  to  give 
the  Importing  Trust  free  access  to  our  markets 
through  a  Philippine  Hole  in  the  Wall,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  this  Taft  crusade  in  favor  of  tariff  "revi- 
sion," more  than  prove  this.  All  these  assaults 
have  badly  shattered  the  dike;  and  the  deluge  of 
foreign  goods  upon  our  markets  is  making  itself 


118 

more  and  more  felt;  and  it  is  much  to  the  interest 
of  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  to  con- 
ceal the  true  cause  of  the  hard  times  that  are  sure 
to  follow.  The  editorial  just  read  helps  do  that; 
and  the  same  is  true  of  the  following : 

"But  now,  what  of  the  future?  Industry  as  yet  has 
shown  only  scant  signs  here  and  there  of  declining  ac- 
tivity. The  crop  outlook  is  not  altogether  satisfactory, 
but  considering  the  advanced  prices  and  the  great  stores 
left  over  from  other  harvests,  there  is  nothing  in  that 
situation  to  bring  real  disaster.  The  mercantile  situation 
seems  healthy" — 

Yes,  your  Honors,  healthy  for  the  Importing 
Trust,  whose  interests  are  the  limiting  horizon  of 
this  speaker's  vision.  The  situation  should  seem 
"healthy"  for  the  Importing  Trust,  when  imported 
goods  are  storming  across  our  dike  at  the  rate  of  a 
billion  and  a  half  a  year.  There  is  a  good  chance 
in  that  for  healthy  commissions  for  the  wily  plain- 
tiff. It  has  no  cause  to  complain.  But  let  us  con- 
tinue the  reading  from  this  mystifier  of  that  about 
which  there  is  no  mystery.  He  continues: 

"Labor  is  still  fully  employed  at  the  highest  rate  of 
wages  ever  paid.  The  banking  position  is  sound.  But  in 
spite  of  all  this,  in  spite  of  a  half-year's  record  just  clos- 
ing, which  in  most  lines  of  business  will  be  the  equal  of 
last  year's  phenomenal  figures,  nearly  all  experienced 
business  men  are  of  the  opinion  that  we  are  facing  a 
practically  certain  recession  in  trade,  that  we  have  ahead 
of  us  a  period  of  smaller  industrial  totals." 

Why,  "a  recession  in  trade,"  your  Honors'?  Has 
our  death-roll  so  outstripped  our  birth-roll  of  late? 
Your  Honors,  the  only  possible  direction  from 
which  at  this  time  can  come  any  "recession  in 
trade"  is  from  a  leaking  tariff -dike,  lessening  our 
home  demand  by  letting  in  a  deluge  of  foreign 
goods,  putting  out  our  factory  fires  and  turning  our 
millions  of  wage-producers  out  of  doors.  For  with 


119 

us,  the  maker  of  trade  is  the  American  people, 
wages'  in  hand,  drawing  upon  the  supply  of  goods 
which  flows  from  American  Production.  So  when 
by  imports  you  stop  American  Production,  you  stop 
to  the  same  degree,  American  consumption,  and  so, 
American  business.  Is  not  our  orator  preparing  us 
for  a  stoppage  of  American  Production?  Docs  that 
mean  anything  else  than  that  the  tariff  dike  is  too 
low  and  that  the  tariff-juggling  and  smuggling  of 
our  Importing-Trust  administration  is  supplant- 
ing American  by  foreign  production?  That  i.>  just 
what  "a  recession  in  trade"  will  prove,  your  Hon- 
ors; and  our  orator  is  preparing  us  with  his  mysti- 
cism to  expect  "a  recession  in  trade"  as  a  matter 
of  course,  so  we  will  not  "get  onto  the  game"  of  the 
Importing  Trust  and  the  leaking  of  our  tariff-dike. 
But  let  us  continue  our  orator's  profound  remarks : 

"Such  a  view  is  almost  universal  among  well-informed 
business  men.  There  is  no  longer  a  disposition  courage- 
ously to  enter  upon  new  enterprises.  Railways  are  cur- 
tailing expenditures.  Bankers  are  inclined  to  exercise 
caution  in  extending  accommodations.  Most  manufac- 
turers and  merchants  are  planning  their  fall  campaign 
with  much  conservatism. 

"That  the  period  ahead  of  us  is  one  in  which  com- 
mercial activities  will  he  curtailed  and  manufacturers 
totals  show  a  decrease,  there  is  really  little  division  o* 
well-informed  opinion." 

There  you  have  it  again,  your  Honors,  manufact- 
urers' totals  are  to  show  a  decrease;  that  is,  Ameri- 
can manufacturers'  totals.  Foreign  manufactur- 
ers' totals  will  show  an  increase;  but  that  is  not 
"in  the  game,"  It  is  that  fact  which  must  be  con- 
cealed. And  so  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing 
Trust,  trains  its  literary  guns  on  our  mental  fort- 
resses in  any  way  that  will  shatter  the  tariff-dike 
most,  and  at  the  same  time  make  a  smoke  that  will 
conceal  its  own  hand  on  the  lanyard. 


120 


XVI 

THE  SYSTEMATIC  IGNORING  OP  THE  TARIFF-DIKE  AS  A 
SOURCE  OF  AMERICAN  PROSPERITY  PROCEEDS 
FROM  BUT  ONE  SOURCE  AND  HAS  BUT  ONE  OBJECT. 

Your  Honors,  we  cannot  repeat  too  often  our 
warning  to  you  against  the  subtleties  by  which  the 
wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  carries  on  its 
great  propaganda  of  public  opinion  against  our 
client,  American  Production,  and  in  favor  of  its 
own  monopoly  of  our  domestic  market.  We  have 
given  you  a  number  of  examples  of  its  methods  of 
bringing  into  contempt  the  great  tariff-dike  behind 
which  and  because  of  which  our  client  lives  and 
moves  and  has  its  being. 

A  distinct  method  by  which  the  wily  plaintiff, 
the  Importing  Trust,  thrusts  its  pick  and  its  crow- 
bar deep  beneath  the  foundations  of  this  defense  to 
our  national  being  is  that  by  which  its  newspapers, 
authors,  and  orators1,  when  seeking  to  account  for 
our  prosperity  on  the  one  hand  and  our  adversity 
on  the  other,  ignore  the  condition  of  the  tariff-dike. 
You  have  not  the  time  and  we  have  not  the  breath 
to  go  into  our  budget  of  proofs  of  this  method  of 
assault  employed  by  the  wily  plaintiff  just  named, 
proofs  which  we  have  gathered  from  a  thousand 
sources;  and  we  shall  spare  you  and  content  our- 
selves by  the  analysis  of  a  single  remarkable  case 
wherein  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  by 
the  mouth  of  one  of  its  most  devoted  servants1,  seeks 
to  hide  the  only  source  whence  prosperity  beams 
upon  our  land  and  warms  to  quick  action  the  great 
powers  of  this  nation.  To  quote  from  an  oration 


121 

delivered  not  so  long  ago  by  an  orator  well  known 
as  an  advocate  of  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing 
Trust : 

"Men  need  training  to  become  skillful.  They  must 
have  variety  of  work  if  their  outlook  and  technical  skill 
are  to  have  breadth.  They  must  know  something  of  prin- 
ciples, if  they  are  to  have  original  ideas  of  value.  I  be- 
lieve that  we  have  failed  utterly  to  grasp  the  problem  of 
the  relation  between  education  and  our  industrial  de- 
velopment and  prosperity." 

Please  note,  your  Honors,  that  this  speaker  as- 
sumes that  the  only  source  of  our  national  pros- 
perity is  foreign  trade;  for  only  on  that  assumption 
has  this  statement  any  force.  The  speaker  ignores 
the  fact  that  our  domestic  trade  absorbs  nearly 
98%  of  our  average  total  annual  production.  He, 
therefore,  ignores  our  tariff-dike  entirely  as  the 
source  of  prosperity;  nay,  as  the  source  of  our 
chance  to  live  at  all.  You  will  observe  that  his 
key-note  is  education,  which  he  assumes  to  be  the 
one  thing  needful  to  help  our  artisans'  "capture  the 
markets  of  the  world." 

But  back  to  our  orator : 

"Within  the  memory  of  most  Americans  there  has 
been  what  amounts  to  nothing  short  of  a  revolution  in 
industrial  affairs.  We  have  seen  England  lose  much  of 
her  pre-eminence  among  the  industrial  nations." 

Please  note  again,  your  Honors,  the  course  of 
this  orator's  reflections.  England,  he  says,  has  lost 
much  of  her  industrial  "pre-eminence."  It  is*  a  no- 
torious fact  that  she  has  lost  it  by  tearing  down  her 
tariff-dike  and  exposing  herself,  a  cost-50  country, 
to  struggle  for  her  own  domestic  market  with  goods1 
from  countries  whose  costs  range  from  30  down  to 
5,  our  own  country  at  cost-100  being  taken  as  the 
standard.  And  yet  our  orator  would  make  you  be- 
lieve that  it  was  want  of  education  and  not  tariff- 


1  °2 

dike  protection  against  a     foreign  deluge  which 
robbed  England  of  industrial  supremacy.  But  back 

again  to  our  orator : 

• 

"We  have  seen  two  other  nations  grow  from  compara- 
tively small  beginnings  to  places  of  the  first  rank." 

These  "two  other  nations,"  your  Honors,  are  Ger- 
many and  the  United  States,  both  of  which  have 
erected  high-tariff  dikes  and  shut  out  a  large  part 
of  the  foreign  deluge,  on  the  principle  that  the  do- 
mestic market  which  you  have  is  worth  twice  as 
much  as  the  domestic  market  which  some  other 
fellow  has,  and  to  gain  which  you  must  compete 
with  all  creation.  And  our  author  says  that  these 
two  nations  which  have  applied  this  common-sense 
maxim  to  their  industrial  affairs  are  those  which, 
"from  small  beginnings',"  have  grown  "to  places  of 
the  first  rank."  One  would  think  that  this  curious 
coincidence  would  make  our  orator  sit  up  and  take 
notice.  But  he  is  not  paid  to  think  that  way.  He 
proceeds : 

"I  have  indicated  what  I  believe  to  be  the  principal 
elements  upon  which  our  own  industrial  success  has  been 
based." 

lie  had  previously  pointed  out,  your  Honors,  that 
the  "principal  elements  upon  which  our  own  indus- 
trial success  has  been  based"  are  "unexampled  sup- 
plies of  raw  material'-  and  "an  unequalled  genius 
for  doing  things  on  a  great  scale."  This  alone 
would  have  marked  our  orator  as  a  member  of  the 
Importing  Trust,  without  going  further  into  his 
deliverance.  But  back  to  our  eloquent  friend: 


"But  we  have  seen  another  nation  [Germany]  without 
the  special  advantages  of  raw  material  which  we  have 
enjoyed  push  forward  in  a  development  as  rapid  as  ours, 
and  wrest  from  others  in  competitive  fields  the  advantage 


they  had  long  held  in  security.  Germany  has  had  the 
scantiest  aid  from  nature  to  make  that  progress  possible. 
Not  only  has  she  had  no  wealth  of  raw  material  such  as 
we  have  had;  she  has  had  no  vast  homogeneous  domestic 
market,  a  factor  which  has  been  of  vital  aid  in  building 
up  our  own  manufactures.  Her  people  have  lacked  the 
peculiar  inventive  ingenuity  which  has,  in  many  fields 
of  industry,  been  the  sole  basis  for  our  achievements." 


Your  Honors,  we  believe  it  is  a  libel  thus  to  write 
down  the  great  German  nation  as  a  lot  of  mechan- 
ical idiots.  Our  own  "peculiar  inventive  ingenuity" 
is  German,  as  well  as  English,  Irish,  Scotch, 
French,  Spanish,  and  all  the  rest.  For  we  are  all 
importations ;  and  there  is  not  a  rivulet  of  the  "in- 
ventive ingenuity"  now  bragged  about  by  us  which 
did  not  take  its  rise  in  the  great  European  spring 
of  intelligence.  But  let  that  pass  and  back  again 
to  our  Importing  Trust  orator: 

"Her  [German]  artisans  have  not  possessed  that  deli- 
cate artistic  sense." 

Hifalutin,  your  Honors! 

"which  has  made  the  handiwork  of  France  superior  to 
the  obstructions  of  all  tariff  walls." 

More  hifalutin,  your  Honors! 

"Her  industries  have  been  forced  to  grapple  with  Eng- 
lish competitors  who  were  intrenched  behind  a  domina- 
tion of  international  markets  successfully  maintained  for 
generations." 

Your  Honors,  we  beg  to  call  your  attention  to 
the  well-known  fact  that  for  three  hundred  years 
Knirland  maintained  an  almost  impassable  tariff 
dike  against  the  influx  of  manufactures  in  any  wise 
competing  with  her  own.  During  those  three  cen- 
turies her  industries  were  so  developed  as  to  dwarf 
by  comparison  those  of  all  other  countries.  She 


124 

had  reached  such  momentum  in  her  flight  upward 
that  it  seemed  as  if  she  might  forever  defy  the  law 
of  gravitation.  Her  capital  was  almost  unlimited, 
an  enormous  amount  of  it  being  fixed  in  the  best- 
equipped  work-shops  in  the  world,  manned  by  the 
descendants  of  generations  of  artisans,  who,  in  the 
operations  of  the  factory,  inherited  the  cunning  of 
their  forefathers.  Her  place  seemed  eternally  se- 
cured. But  in  1846  she  tore  down  all  her  protect- 
ing dikes  and  her  destruction  began.  Not  even 
lordly  England,  easily  the  giant  leader  of  the  earth 
in  manufacturing,  proved  superior  to  the  law  of 
economic  gravitation  expressed  in  the  words: 

"Capital  desiring  a  given  market  for  its  output,  must 
finally  locate  in  the  area  of  lowest  cost  of  production 
for  that  market." 

Too  powerful  even  for  England  was  the  fact  that 
she  was  a  cost-50  country,  as  we  have  before  stated, 
while  just  across  the  channel  were  cost-30  and 
cost-25  countries,  which  sucked  away  her  capital 
to  build  factories  on  the  continent  of  Europe  with 
which  to  put  English  industries  out  of  business. 
The  havoc  wrought  among  British  wage-producers 
beggars  description.  Industry  after  industry  went 
into  decay.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of  her  wage- 
producers  starved  slowly  to  death,  their  very  blood 
and  bones  being  coined  for  the  coffers  of  heir 
wealthy  manufacturers  who  had  repealed  the  Corn 
Laws.  And  the  havoc  is  still  going  on.  Her  only 
hope  lies  in  restoring  her  tariff-dikes,  converting 
her  gentlemen's  shooting  preserves,  forests,  and 
parks  into  corn-fields  and  cattle  ranches,  bringing 
back  her  farmers  to  her  farms  with  the  hope  of  life, 
and  relieving  the  congestion  of  wage-producers  at 
manufacturing  centres  until  manufacturers  are 


125 

forced  to  pay  living  wages  to  their  workers.  Eng- 
land's plight  is1  so  plain  that  a  blind  man  can  see  it. 
And  yet  we  have  our  orator  laying  England's  loss 
of  primacy  to  want  of  technical  education !  Your 
Honors,  it  is  not  education  in  anything  but  human- 
ity to  her  wage-producers  that  England  needs.  Put 
good  wages  ahead  of  the  English  wage-producer, 
and  he  will  take  care  of  his  own  education  and  that 
of  his  children.  It  is  in  the  breed.  Our  orator 
continues: 

"But  amidst  a  poverty  of  natural  resources,"— 

Bismarck  built  a  high  tariff-dike,  our  orator 
might  say  and  account  for  the  whole  matter;  but 
he  is  afflicted  with  Importing-Trust  blindness  and 
could  not  see  a  tariff-dike  three  feet  away.  He 
continues : 

— "and  from  among  a  people  not  singularly  gifted 
either  with  inventive  ability  or  artistic  temperament,  we 
have  seen  emerge  in  a  generation  the  great  industrial 
forces  of  the  German  Empire.  The  time  is  within  the 
memory  of  most  of  us  when  Germany  was  in  large  meas- 
ure an  agricultural  state  winning  but  meagre  return  from 
sterile  acres.  There  were  neither  rich  mines  below  ground 
nor  exhaustless  forests  above.  Whatever  was  done  by 
the  Germans  had  to  be  done  in  the  sweat  of  their  brows. 
Whatever  thev  have  accomplished  we  must  admit  fairly 
earned,  for  they  have  been  heirs  to  few  bounties  of 
nature.  I  have  made  a  somewhat  careful  study  of  Ger- 
many's economic  success,  and  in  doing  that  I  have  be- 
come firmlv  convinced  that  the  explanation  of  the  re- 
markable German  nroerress  is  to  be  traced  in  the  most 
direct  manner  to  the  German  system  of  education.  The 
schoolmaster  is  the  great  corner-stone  of  Germany's  re- 
markable commercial  and  industrial  progress.  The  school 
system  of  Germany  bears  a  relation  to  the  economic 
situation  that  is  not  met  with  in  any  other  country. ' ' 

Your  Honors,  the  source  of  this  effusion  is  the 
heart  of  the  Importing  Trust,  wily  plaintiff  herein. 
The  orator  who  uttered  these  words  did  not  believe 
them  himself.  For  he  is  an  intelligent  man,  and 


126 

we  do  not  think  that  his  brain-cells  are  so  arranged 
as  to  make  a  cart  couchant  in  front  of  a  horse  ram- 
pant his  heraldry.  But  to  lay  to  education  Ger- 
many's "remarkable  commercial  and  industrial 
progress"  is  merely  to  put  the  cart  before  the  horse. 
The  first  tariff-dike  as  a  bulwark  to  industry  was 
made  for  Germany  by  Bismarck  some  time  after 
the  Franco-Prussian  war  of  1870.  Our  orator,  just 
quoted,  assures  us  that  "the  time  is  within  the  mem- 
ory of  most  of  us  when  Germany  was  in  large  mea- 
sure an  agricultural  state  winning  but  meager  re- 
turn from  sterile  acres."  That  was  something  like 
a  generation  ago,  and  before  protection  was  adopted 
by  Germany  as  a  definite  national  policy.  What- 
ever tariff  existed  before  that  time  was1  only  inci- 
dentally protective.  But  a  consistent  tariff -dike, 
by  reserving  to  her  own  capital  the  German  do- 
mestic trade,  no  sooner  gave  Germany  a  chance  to 
market  the  fact  that  she  was  a  cost-30  country,  as 
against  England's  cost-50,  than  Germany  ceased  to 
b*>  "in  large  measure  an  agricultural  state  winning 
but  meagre  return  from  sterile  acres,"  and  became 
a  manufacturing  state,  the  same  one  mentioned  by 
our  orator  as  having  assisted  to  drive  England 
down  from  her  proud  industrial  primacy  to  the 
third  rank.  Now,  your  Honors,  it  seems  to  us  that 
it  is  worse  than  silly  to  believe  that  education  in 
already-educated  Germany  gave  to  German  capital 
tho  certainty  of  getting  back,  mark  for  mark,  and 
a  little  more,  what  it  invested  in  manufactures  for 
the  German  domestic  market.  Of  what  use  would 
"technical  education"  have  been  to  Germans  who 
had  no  manufacturing  industries  in  which  to  get 
back  some  return  for  the  expense  of  becoming 
"technically"  educated?  If  German  technical  edu- 
cation has  put  in  an  appearance,  it  is  certain  that 


127 

it  appeared  because  the  factories  had  appeared,  and 
the  factories  were  built  with  Germany's  tariff-dike 
as  a  foundation. 

Our  orator,  your  Honors,  says  that  we  here  owe 
our  long  step  ahead  to  our  "unexampled  supplies 
of  raw  material"  and  "unequalled  genius  for  doing 
things  on  a  great  scale,"  which  he  otherwise  alludes 
to  as  "inventive  genius."  But  we  have  no  technical 
schools  worthy  of  the  name,  or,  at  any  rate,  none 
that,  for  numbers  and  age,  have  had  any  effect 
whatever  on  the  prosperity  which  set  in  strong 
for  us  at  the  date  of  the  erection  of  the  Dingley 
dike. 

He  says  that  Germany  has1  neither  raw  mate- 
rial nor  inventive  genius  to  account  for  her  indus- 
trial advance,  but  that  she  has  a  school  system 
which  bears  a  relation  to  the  economic  situation 
that  is  not  met  with  in  any  other  country,  and  that 
"the  explanation  of  the  remarkable  German  prog- 
ress is  to  be  traced  in  the  most  direct  manner  tc 
the  German  system  of  education.*' 

He  also  says  "we  have  seen  England  lose  much 
of  her  pre-eminence  among  industrial  nations.  We 
have  seen  two  other  nations  grow  from  compara- 
tively small  beginnings  to  places  of  the  first  rank." 
But  we  all  know  that  England  has  inventive  genius, 
natural  resources  in  her  mines  of  coal  and  iron, 
and  plentiful  education. 

Now,  remembering  that,  as  to  comparative  costs, 
we  stand  at  cost-100,  England  at  cost-50,  and  Ger- 
many at  cost-30,  let  us  gather  all  these  facts  into 
a,  table,  in  order  that  we  may  see  whether  the  wily 
plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  by  the  mouth  of  its' 
servant,  our  orator,  is  talking  rationally  when, 
comparing  England,  Germany  and  the  United 
States,  it  lays  to  "technical  education"  the  differ- 


128 


ence  between  going  ahead  and  behind.     Here  is  the 
table : 


Nation 

Tariff  Dike 

Cost 
Number 

Technical 
Education 

Inventive 
Genius 

Natural 
Resources 

Movement 

England 

Revenue 

50 

Fair 

Good 

Important 

Backward 

Germany 

United 
States 

Protective 

30 

Best 

Poor 

Meagre 

Ahead 

Protective 

100 

Lacking 

Best 

"Unexampled"! 

Ahead 

Your  Honors,  we  have  printed  and  now  hand  you 
copies  of  this  table.  Please  note  that,  with  regard 
to  the  characteristics  at  the  head  of  the  columns, 
the  whole  three  countries'  differ  in  cost,  education, 
inventive  genius  and  natural  resources.  We  think 
even  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  will 
agree  with  us  here.  As  to  the  remaining  two 
points,  England  is  directly  opposed  to  Germany 
and  the  United  States,  upon  these  two  points,  and 
these  alone,  Germany  and  the  United  States  stand- 
ing together,  and  the  table  showing  that,  irrespec- 
tive of  cost,  education,  inventive  genius,  and  natural 
resources,  both  of  the  countries  which  have  protec- 
tive-tariff dikes  are  going  ahead,  while  England  is 
going  behind.  Moreover,  as  to  the  four  non-coin- 
ciding points,  Germany  differs  more  widely  from 
the  United  States  than  from  England;  and  yet  Ger- 
many and  the  United  States,  having  similar  tariff- 
dikes,  also  stand  the  same  with  regard  to  progress. 
How  a  person  whose  brain-cells  did  not  illustrate 
the  cart  before  the  horse  could  lay  progress  in  Ger- 
many to  "technical  education,"  when  "technical 
education"  in  Germany  did  not  precede  but  fol- 
lowed her  forward  movement,  and  is  lacking  in  the 
United  States,  the  second  of  the  two  nations  who 
have  grown  "from  comparatively  small  beginnings 


129 

to  places  of  the  first  rank,"  is  a  mystery  which  only 
the  intelligence  of  an  Importing-Trust  orator  could 
solve.  Why  would  it  not  be  more  logical,  your 
Honors,  to  attribute  the  progress  of  Germany  and 
the  United  States  to  the  characteristics  in  which 
they  are  similar,  viz.,  the  protective-tariff  dike,  than 
to  a  characteristic  in  which  they  are  so  dissimilar 
as  that  it  is  gloomily  lacking  in  the  one  but  radi- 
antly present  in  the  other? 

;We  repeat,  your  Honors,  that  the  making  little 
of  the  tariff-dike  as  the  bulwark  of  American  pros- 
perity has  only  one  source,  viz.,  the  interest  that 
would  be  most  injured  in  pocket  if  our  people  all 
realized  that  our  tariff-dike  is  our  only  hope  against 
national  annihilation;  which  interest,  of  course,  is 
the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust.  But 
speeches,  magazine  articles,  and  newspaper  edi- 
torials, all  arising  from  one  or  the  other  of  these 
wily  plaintiffs,  are  busy  throughout  this  country, 
doing  just  what  was  done  by  the  orator  whose  words 
we  have  quoted;  that  is,  hiding  the  Dingley  Dike 
behind  a  veil  of  sophistry  and  fallacy.  But  some- 
thing had  to  be  done,  your  Honors.  The  Dingley 
Dike,  in  such  sharp  contrast  with  Cleveland  free 
trade,  was  so  plainly  the  rock  upon  which  our  pros- 
perity was  built,  that  the  campaign  of  explanation 
was  a  necessity,  if  the  wily  plaintiffs  were  not  to  be 
destroyed  by  the  sheer  common  sense  of  the  people. 
In  passing,  we  cannot  help  regretting,  your  Honors, 
that  the  brain-cells  of  the  majority  of  our  people  are 
not  so  well  ballasted  that  they  cannot  be  paralyzed 
by  every  Importing  Trust  sophist  who  gets  their 

ear. 


130 


XVII. 

AND,  AS  SYSTEMATICALLY  IGNORING  A  BROKEN  TARIFF- 
DIKE  AS  THE  SOURCE  OF  INCREASED  IMPORTS,  AND 
LAYING  SUCH  INCREASE  TO  OTHER  CAUSES  BE- 
YOND THE  REACH  OF  THE  DIKE  AS  A  REMEDY,  THE 
WILY  PLAINTIFF  STILL  SEEKS  TO  BLIND  AMER- 
ICANS TO  THEIR  PERIL. 

Your  Honors,  we  have  just  shown  you  how  the 
wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  has  tried  to 
account,  by  "technical  education,"  for  Germany's 
success,  denying  that  Germany  to  account  therefor 
has  inventive  genius,  natural  resources  or  other 
things,  and,  as  the  real  cause  of  her  prosperity, 
wholly  ignoring  her  high  tariff-dike.  Your  Honors, 
it  is  as  certain  as  anything  can  be  that  Germany's 
success  comes  from  her  tariff-dike  and  the  keep- 
ing of  her  domestic  market  wherewith  to  induce 
her  capitalists  to  promote  domestic  industry;  and 
it  is  just  as  certain  that  neither  "skill"  nor  "inven- 
tive genius"  has  had  anything  more  to  do  with 
Germany's  success  than  with  that  of  any  other  na- 
tion, since  "skill"  and  "inventive  genius"  are  at 
least  as  universal  as  the  reward  therefor  which  always 
accompanies  a  well-protected  domestic  market. 
But  as  this  wily  plaintiff  accounts  for  a  bounding 
German  export  trade  without  seeing  the  high  tariff- 
dike  as  the  cause,  so  it  also  accounts  for  rising  im- 
ports in  the  United  States  without  seeing  the  holes 
in  the  American  tariff-dike  through  which  imports 
are  rushing.  The  high  tariff-dike  in  Germany  and 
the  low-tariff  dike  in  the  United  States  work  to- 
gether perfectly,  through  our  increase  in  German 
exports,  to  drown  out  American  goods  from  the 


131 

American  domestic  niaiket,  and  yet  the  orator  just 
quoted  says  Germany's  prosperity  comes  from 
"technical  education,"  not  from  its  protected  do- 
mestic market;  and  the  Germans  themselves  say 
it  is  "German  skill  and  faithfulness  in  manufac- 
ture," and  not  the  hole  in  our  dike  which  lets  them 
into  our  market.  In  this  way,  your  Honors,  the 
conspirators  against  our  national  prosperity,  they 
who  are  bent  on  taking  from  us  the  savings  of  a 
decade,  in  order  to  keep  our  ignorance  for  future 
profit,  seek  to  blind  us  Americans  to  the  cause  of 
our  weakness,  on  the  one  hand,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  cause  of  the  strength  of  our  great  pro- 
tectionist adversary  the  Empire  of  Germany. 

We  have  before  alluded  to  the  German  agree- 
ment, whereby  the  Roosevelt  Administration  pur- 
chased misery  for  millions  of  our  wage-earners  by 
a  compact  which  tore  down  our  tariff-dike  from 
one-fifth  to  one-half  on  German  goods.  This  be- 
trayal of  our  country  is  doing  its  hellish  work. 
German  goods  are  pouring  in  here  as  never  before. 
The  Germans  have  so  far  succeeded  in  destroying 
our  tariff-dike  by  the  Von  Sternburg  route  that 
they  are  willing  to  remit  their  efforts  for  "tariff 
concessions'';  but  they  are  laying  to  their  great 
"skill,"  not  to  our  broken  dike,  the  immense  in- 
crease in  their  exports  to  this  country. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  is  trying  to  ride  at  once  two  horses 
racing  in  opposite  directions;  but  it  is  a  very  hard 
straddle.  He  wants  to  pose  to  our  workers  as  a 
friend  of  "labor,"  as  the  "champeen  trust-buster," 
and  at  the  same  time  pose  as  a  friend  of  Germany 
and  of  the  New  York  importers.  He  wants  to  be  all 
things  to  all  men ;  to  serve  God  and  Mammon  and  to 
pray  to  both  with  the  same  breath.  And  the  Ger- 
mans are  trying  to  help  him  fool  the  American  peo- 


132 

pie ;  they  are  trying  to  make  us  think  there  is  not  so 
much  of  a  hole  in  the  dike  after  all ;  and  that  any- 
way we  cannot  build  dikes  high  enough  to  keep  out 
the  results  of  German  skill,  and  therefore  might 
better  not  try.  They  say  the  Dingley  Bill — even 
the  Dingley  Tariff,  so  high  and  imposing — "has 
proved  a  sieve,  through  which  the  torrent  of  Ger- 
man enterprise  flows  unchecked."  But  it  was  Ger- 
man enterprise  in  "getting  away"  with  the  Koose- 
velt  administration  and  no  enterprise  that  Ger- 
mans ever  yet  displayed  in  their  mills  and  factories. 
Your  Honors,  we  propose  reading  to  you  from 
the  Literary  Digest  of  October  26,  1907,  an  inval- 
uable publication  of  world-gossip  most  reliably  re- 
ported. In  this  magazine,  of  the  date  above  given, 
is  the  following: 

"A  ROSY  VIEW  OF  GERMANY'S  TRADE  WITH 
AMERICA. 

"The  German  Government,  having  been  unable  to  se- 
cure any  tariff  concessions  from  this  country" — 

except  the  German  Agreement  which  is  very  nearly 
a  total  prostration  of  our  entire  tariff-dike  towards 
Germany— 

"ia  telling  its  people  through  the  semi-official  CONTI- 
NENTAL CORRESPONDENCE  that  German  trade  can 
win  its  own  way  without  concessions  from  anybody. ' ' 

A  sop  for  babies,  your  Honors.  Does  this  German 
Government  organ  mean  to  say  that  we,  for  in- 
stance, could  not  totally  shut  out  its  goods,  if  we 
desired?  But  to  continue: 


"In  its  effort  to  gain  tariff  modifications  from  the 
United  States  the  Berlin  Government  has  been  urged  on 
by  the  German  manufactures,  who  want  our  tariff  bars 
lowered  so  they  can  sell  more  goods  here." 


133 

Why,  your  Honors,  should  they  require  the  bars 
lowered  to  sell  more  goods  here,  when  the  German- 
Koosevelt  Agreement  has  left  as  good  as  no  bars  at 
all  for  German  goods?  We  think  this  sort  of  talk 
is  for  broad  public  consumption;  for  peddling 
through  the  United  States  to  fool  our  people  to 
think  that  the  bars  have  not  already  been  lowered, 
and  that  if  the  Germans  come  in  here  and  take  our 
domestic  market  away  from  us  entirely,  it  will 
prove  that  no  tariff  bars  can  keep  out  the  "skillful 
Germans" — skillful  in  back-door  politics,  your  Hon- 
ors. Therefore,  the  tariff  bars  being  of  no  use  to 
keep  out  these  brilliant  Teutons,  we  might  as  well 
resign  ourselves  to  the  fate  the  politico-economic 
gods  have  meted  out  to  us,  throw  down  the  dike  en- 
tirely and  become  colonists  to  the  German  Empire. 

Why,  your  Honors,  talk  about  the  German  War- 
Lord  colonizing  South  America,  to  the  menace  of 
the  Monroe  Doctrine  and  our  sovereign  security 
here,  bless  your  ingenuous  hearts,  he  is  colonizing 
these  very  United  States  with  the  fabrics  of  his 
factories,  to  the  Teutonizing  of  us  all  to  the  shade 
to  which  the  proximity  of  Herr  Von  Sternburg  has 
already  colored  Herr  Von  Trust-Buster  Roosevelt, 
like  a  Dutch  meerschaum !  But  back  to  our  Liter- 
ary Digest: 

"The  German  Agrarians  second  this  effort  with  the 
suggestion  that  if  we  do  not  capitulate,  Germany  should 
retaliate  by  raising  its  own  tariff  bars  against  American 
products.  This  is  just  what  it  cannot  very  well  do,  how- 
ever, for  Germany  must  have  our  grain  and  meats,  and  to 
raise  the  tariff  on  these  supplies,  while  enriching  the 
Agrarian  landowners,  would  be  to  raise  the  cost  of  living 
in  Germany — and  that  is  what  makes  Socialists.  So  the 
Government  is  letting  well  enough  alone,  and  assuring  the 
tariff  complainants  that  they  are  doing  splendidly" — 

Splendidly,  indeed,  your  Honors!  Our  dike  has 
been  smashed  with  a  Dutch  club  and  the  Germans 


134 

have  here,  practically  free,  the  greatest  market  in 
the  world,  which  they  can  take  from  us  as  fast  as 
they  please,  not  because  of  their  superior  skill,  your 
Honors,  but  because  they  are  a  cost-30  country  and 
we  are  a  cost-100  country. 

— they  are  doing  splendidly  and  don't  need  any  help," 

Except,  your  Honors,  a  Koosevelt  Administration 
at  Washington  and  a  Von  Sternburg  hob-nobbing 
with  the  President  in  the  White  House.  But  back 
to  our  Digest  : 

"And  it  is  true  that  Germany  is  only  second  to  Great 
Britain  in  her  trade  with  us  and  is  well  in  the  lead  of 
any  other  country." 

And  will  keep  in  the  lead,  your  Honors,  and  soon 
outstrip  Great  Britain  in  our  markets  here,  for 
Great  Britain  is  a  cost-50  country  against  Ger- 
many's cost-30,  and  the  biggest  profit-margin  is 
going  to  beat  everything  else.  But  to  continue  our 
reading : 

"The  tariff  on  imports  into  the  United  States  imposed 
by  law  some  ten  years  ago  has  not,  according  to  THE 
CONTINENTAL  CORRESPONDENCE,  interfered  in  any 
way  with  the  sale  of  German  goods  in  the  United  States. ' ' 

Then,  your  Honors,  in  the  name  of  truth,  why 
did  the  Germans  threaten  to  double  their  tariffs 
against  our  goods  and  why  did  Mr.  Koosevelt  lie 
down  and  let  them  walk  over  him  in  the  German 
Agreement?  But,  your  Honors,  we  believe  this  talk 
is  all  for  show — just  to  conceal  the  fact  that  the 
Germans  have  captured  our  markets  by  diplomacy. 
There  is  something  so  puzzling  about  all  this  contra- 
dictory business  that  we  cannot  quite  reconcile  our- 
selves1 to  believe  that  this  dark-lantern,  stealthy 


135 

German  Agreement  was  not  made  to  the  immense 
profit  of  somebody  here  in  the  United  States.  We 
have  been  sold  out,  your  Honors.  Our  invaluable 
domestic  market,  the  envy  of  the  earth,  has  been 
sold  out  to  the  Germans  for  a  solid  quid  pro  quo. 
We  cannot  believe  that  Americans  are  such  fools 
that  they  do  not  know  the  value  in  gold  of  such 
a  large  section  of  our  market  as  was  delivered  to 
the  Germans  by  this  infamous  Agreement.  Who 
got  the  quid  pro  quo?  And  was  it  money,  flattery, 
political  popularity  or  poodles?  It  was  something, 
your  Honors,  or  else  the  American  end  of  this  deal 
was  in  the  hands  of  unreasonable  beings.  Still  to 
our  Digest: 

"This  it  considers  the  result  of  German  skill  and  faith- 
fulness in  manufacture,  and  'Made  in  Germany,'  it  thinks, 
is  a  guaranty  that  should  control  any  market." 

A iid  yet  these  same  fellows,  before  the  German 
Agreement  was  born,  said  if  we  did  not  aid  German 
"skill"  and  "Made  in  Germany"  by  cutting  down 
our  dike,  they  would  cut  us  out  of  their  market  for 
grains  and  meats,  which  is  about  all  we  sell  them, 
except  raw  cotton.  Back  to  the  jewsharp. 

Of  the  increase  of  the  German  importations  into 
this  country  this  organ  remarks: 

"In  every  respect  the  fiscal  year  ending  in  1907  shows 
record  figures.  The  value  of  German  wares  imported 
into  the  United  States  reached  the  amount  of  $161,- 
500,000,  while  Germany  bought  $240,000,000  worth  of 
American  goods.  That  shows  an  excess  of  50  per  cent, 
on  the  side  of  Germany's  purchases  and  seems  at  the 
first  glance  very  disadvantageous  for  the  Fatherland. 
But  we  find  that  seven  years  ago  this  excess  amounted 
to  90  per  cent.,  and  in  1898  even  to  130  per  cent,  of 
Germany's  exports  into  the  United  States.  In  proportion 
at  least  the  German  balance  of  trade  shows  a  consider- 
able improvement.  If  we  limit  our  attention  to  the  in- 
crease in  the  last  two  years" — 

Ah,  your  Honors, these  bland  Teutons  should  have 


186 

said,  "in  the  last  three  months"  or  since  our  tariff  - 
dike  was  crushed  with  the  Eoosevelt  battering- 
ram!  But,  no,  it  is  the  fairy  wand  of  German 
"skill  and  faithfulness  in  manufacture"  that  did 
the  job.  Sleep,  my  baby,  sleep,  'tis  not  the  cat  lap- 
ping your  milk  that  disturbs  your  dreams  but  the 
wing-rustle  of  the  fairy  "Skill !"  This  is  all  a  beau- 
tiful lullaby,  your  Honors,  written  for  the  score 
"Benevolent  Fairy,"  dedicated  to  the  wily  plaintiff, 
the  Importing  Trust.  Here  is  more  if  it : 

"  'If  we  limit  our  attention  to  the  increase  in  the  last 
two  years,  we  find  even  absolutely  the  same  figures. 
Germany  got  in  1907  American  goods  of  $43,000,000  value 
more  than  in  1905;  and  by  the  same  amount  of  $43,- 
000,000  we  find  the  German  imports  into  the  United 
States  higher  in  1907  than  in  1905.  Now,  if  we  go  into 
details,  we  notice  that  among  the  American  goods  im- 
ported into  Germany  cotton  is  principally  responsible 
for  the  increase.  On  account  of  the  large  demand  of  the 
German  spinning  mills  and  the  higher  prices,  the  United 
States  increased  their  sales  of  raw  cotton  to  Germany 
within  two  years  by  not  less  than  $34,000,000,  so  that 
the  cotton  imported  into  Germany  accounts  for  80  per 
cent,  of  this  very  remarkable  increase.' 

"When  we  come  to  ask  the  proportion  between  the 
exports  and  imports  of  the  United  States  and  Germany, 
this  writer  tells  us  that  while  German  exports  to  the 
United  States  are  less  than  those  of  the  United  States 
to  Germany  in  regard  to  raw  materials,  the  contrary  is 
the  case  when  we  calculate  the  interchange  of  manu- 
factured articles.  America  exported  to  Germany  $90,- 
600,000  worth  of  such  goods  for  the  year  ending  1907,  but 
imported  from  Germany  manufactured  goods  to  the 
amount  of  $147,000,000." 

Yes,  your  Honors,  the  Germans  get  our  meats 
and  grains  to  feed  their  workers  and  underbid  our 
factory  hands  in  this  market  under  the  German 
Agreement.  They  take  our  raw  cotton,  to  make 
into  cotton  fabrics  which  are  sent  back  here  to  take 
our  market  from  our  own  factories  and  bread  from 
our  own  cotton  workers.  Our  Sunny  South  is  the 
natural  field  for  all  forms  of  cotton  manufactures; 
and  yet  the  German  Agreement  takes  the  work 


137 

from  Southern  mills  and  gives  it  to  the  Germans, 
and  we  pay  the  freight  both  ways.  How  the  South 
can  keep  quiet  under  this  outrage  is  a  puzzle.  This 
wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  in  order  to 
fatten  from  its  commissions  on  foreign  goods,  would 
keep  us  here  forever  as  the  coarse  and  codgerly 
makers  of  "raw  materials"  to  send  abroad  for  man- 
uafcture  and  return  to  us.  This  is  evidently  Roose- 
veltian  philosophy.  Still  more  from  the  digest: 

"The  writer  accounts  for  this  as  follows:  'In  knitted 
fabrics  the  well-known  superiority  of  the  German  in- 
dustry told  all  the  more  under  the  high  import  duties  of 
the  Dingley  tariff'  " 

Oh,  your  Honors,  this  is  too  much !  They  were  so 
afraid,  were  these  benevolent  Teutons,  that  they 
would  take  our  whole  market  under  the  high  tariffs 
which  so  made  "the  well-known  superiority  of  the 
German  industry  tell  all  the  more" — take  all  our 
market  and  starve  us  quite  to  death,  that  they 
Iwgged  and  implored  us  to  take  down  the  tariff 
wall  and  take  away  their  deadly  advantage;  and 
when  we  would  not,  as  a  nation,  listen  to  their 
prayer,  they  got  this  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing 
Trust,  through  its  lobby  at  the  White  House  and  its 
representatives  in  the  Cabinet  to  go  with  cat-like 
stealth  and  in  the  dead  of  night  and  unlock  our 
tariff-dike  gates  with  the  key  of  the  German  Agree- 
ment, just  to  save  us,  even  against  our  childish 
wills,  from  the  dire  disaster  which  was  surely 
awaiting  us,  unless  we  cut  down  the  dike  and  cut 
off  this  dreadful  advantage  over  our  own  factories 
which  this  high  dike  gave  the  Germans  in  our  do- 
mestic market.  Such  devotion  to  humanity,  even 
when  it  could  be  counted  in  a  loss  of  many  marks, 
was  never  witnessed  before.  Well,  let  us  read  this 
Teutonic  philanthropist  a  little  further: 


138 

"Indeed,  against  the  American  articles  of  ordinary  use 
no  other  European  industries  could  compete  in  this  line; 
we  therefore  find  that  90  per  cent,  of  all  imported  knitted 
fabrics  came  from  Germany.  The  same  remark  holds 
good  with  regard  to  toys  and  coal-tar  colors.  For  leather 
gloves  and  furs  the  latest  change  of  fashion  favored  the 
German  importer,  as  the  American  firms  could  not  pro- 
duce enough  for  the  suddenly  increased  demand "- 

Oh,  what  a  sinful  falsehood,  your  Honors! 
"Could  not  produce  enough  for  the  suddenly  in- 
creased demand!''  Why,  certainly  not.  If  they 
had,  this  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  would 
not  have  won  its  commissions.  That  is  the  uniform 
reason,  your  Honors,  why  Americans  cannot  pro- 
duce this  or  that  thing  fast  enough.  The  meaning 
always  is  "fast  enough  to  leave  the  profits  of  it 
in  the  hands  of  the  Importing  Trust."  If  our  client, 
American  Production,  were  paying  this  wily  plain- 
tiff, the  same,  or  a  little  better,  commissions  than 
are  being  paid  to  it  by  Foreign  Production,  we 
never  would  hear  anything  about  being  too  slow  or 
too  unskillful  or  too  anything  else  to  supply  our 
market  here.  But  let  us  hear  this  mystifier  out : 


"Earthenware  and  porcelain  would  be  imported  in 
large  quantities  because  the  German  manufacturers 
adapted  their  produce  to  the  American  taste  that  favors 
bright  colors  and  fantastic  patterns." 


Yes,  your  Honors,  any  way  to  account  for  their 
filching  our  markets  here,  except  by  the  fact  of 
their  pitting  their  cost-30  against  our  cost-100  and 
by  German  Agreements  bribing  our  sentinels,  to  let 
them  pass  our  tariff  line.  Surely,  we  are  South  Sea 
Islanders,  with  rings  in  our  noses  and  bells  on  our 
feet,  fond  "of  bright  colors  and  fantastic  patterns/' 
if  that  will  account  for  the  Germans  beating  us  in 
our  own  market  and  hide  the  hole  in  the  tariff- 
dike.  Still  more  prodigies  from  the  German  magi- 
cians: 


139 

"Paper  and  stationery  were,  in  the  last  few  years, 
exported  from  Germany  at  ridiculously  low  prices  on 
account  of  a  crisis  in  the  trade" — 


Which  illustrates  what  we  said  some  time  back, 
your  Honors.  "Crises  in  trade"  abroad  and  their 
consequent  fire  and  bankrupt  sales  could  drown  out 
this  market  but  for  our  tariff-dike;  for  there  is 
enough  of  the  world  and  enough  of  such  sales  go- 
ing on  all  the  time  to  supply  us  with  all  things  at 
costs  even  far  lower  than  the  normal  cost  abroad. 
Our  dike  should  be  built  to  heaven  instead  of  being 
cut  down  to  hell  for  our  workers.  But  let  us  go  on 
with  our  reading: 


"Cement  was  much  in  request  on  account  of  the  San 
Francisco  catastrophe  and  could  not  be  immediately 
supplied  "by  American  manufacturers." 


Of  course  not,  your  Honors.  There  is  always  on 
hand  an  Importing-Trust  jobber  ready  to  rob  our 
workers  by  any  pretext  at  any  short  notice.  No 
American  enterprise  is  ever  in  such  a  real  hurry 
that  it  should  not  be  compelled  to  await  the  rising 
of  American  Production  to  the  occasion.  The  wel- 
fare of  those  concerned  in  the  development  of  the 
waiting  enterprise  is  of  no  greater  consequence 
than  the  uniform  development  of  this  whole  nation. 
Reading  again: 


"The  same  may  "he  said  of  eellrrtose.  whi<*h  in  1907 
exported  frorn  Gwrmanv  into  the  TTnitefl  States  to 
the  amount  of  $858.500  or  twenty-one  times  as  much  as 
in  1899. 

"In  short,  Germanv.  arrordipo'  to  this  writer,  has  Tvpn 
trintnnhant.  All  cotrmetitors.  li^e  'DOTIHTUX  time. '  'toil 
after  her  in  vain.'  atirl  the  Dinsrlev  "Rill  jiag  Tnvwort  a 
sieve,  through  which  the  torrent  of  German  enterprise 
flows  unchecked.  To  quote  the  last  paragraph  of  this 
arresting  article: 

"  'It,  is  plonr  that  in  the  interchange  of  merchandise 
nfbpr  conrHtions.  ever  of  a  transient  nature,  are  far  more 
important  than  the  effect  of  a  customs  tariff.'  " 


140 

Conditions,  your  Honors,  of  such  "transient  na- 
ture," for  instance,  as  the  sort  of  an  Administration 
we  have  at  Washington.  A  Roosevelt  can  discount 
the  most  effective  tariff-dike  in  the  world,  and  do  it 
without  even  being  suspected  by  the  dear  devoted 
people  of  being  a  rank  free  trader.  We  think  our 
Teutonic  friend  is  quite  right.  When  you  have  at 
court  a  Von  Sternburg  joker  in  a  Koosevelt  pack, 
you  can  well  say,  "I  care  not  who  makes  tariffs  for 
the  American  people,  so  long  as  I  own  the  Execu- 
tive ear."  But  let  us  finish  this  triumph  of  mysti- 
fication : 

"  'The  German  manufacturers  and  exporters  have  suc- 
ceeded so  well  by  the  intrinsic  merits  of  their  produce, 
the  painstaking  study  of  American  wants  and  American 
tastes'  " — 

For  gaudy  colors  and  uncouth  shapes,  your  Hon- 
ors, our  fellow  savages! 

— "  'and  by  the  quick  utilization  of  the  proper  means 
for  finding  customers  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic. 
The  progress  of  American  industries  and  the  more  severe 
competition  of  the  exporting  countries  of  Europe  were 
the  principal  factors  to  be  counted  with.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  the  Dingley  tariff  did  not  prevent  an  extraordi- 
nary growth  of  the  German  exports  into  the  United  States 
during  the  last  ten  years.'  " 

Your  Honors,  we  quite  agree  with  the  Literary 
Digest  that  this  is  an  "arresting  article";  so  ar- 
resting that  it  ought  to  arrest  and  throw  in  jail — a 
figurative  jail,  your  Honors — any  one  in  this  coun- 
try who  not-  only  does  not  root  for  tariff-dike 
revision  downwards,  but  who  does  not  root 
with  all  his  might  for  such  an  immediate 
tariff -dike  revision  upwards  as  that  the  dike 
will  be  something  more  than  a  "sieve 
through  which  the  torrent  of  German  enterprise 
flows  unchecked,"  The  Dinglev  Law  never  was  an 


141 

effective  protection  measure.     That  is  proved  by 
the  tide  of  imports  which  has  been  rising  ever  since 
it  was  passed.  According  to  Republican  statements, 
it  was  only  made  high  enough  just  to  offset  the  ad- 
vantage in  cheaper  labor  held  by  foreign  produc- 
ers and  give  our  own  workers  in  their  own  market  a 
mere  equal  chance  with  foreign  workers.    But  since 
it  was  made,  foreigners  have  been  improving  their 
machinery  and  methods,  and,  like  the  Germans, 
have  been  making  special  efforts  to  get  into  our  mar- 
ket, with  the  result  that  the  Dingley  Dike  was  far 
too  low,  even  before  the  Roosevelt  Administration 
practically  destroyed  it  by  the  German  Agreement. 
The  Germans  now  tell  us,  in  the  article  just  quoted 
that  "the  torrent  of  German  enterprise  flows  un- 
checked" through  the  tariff  dike,  which  has  proven 
a  "sieve"' ;  that  practically  they  have  beaten  down 
all  opposition,  even  from  our  American  industries, 
although  they  admit,  now  that  the  fight  is  over  and 
they  are  in  full  possession  of  our  market,  that  in  the 
scrimmage  which  preceded  their  final  victory,  "the 
progress  of  American  industries"  was  to  be  counted 
with  to  make  their  success  more  difficult.    But  they 
have  succeeded,  not  because  "protection  does  not 
protect,"  but  because,  in  addition  to  our  cost-100 
market    never    having    been    half-way    protected 
against  a  cost-20  world,  we  have  been  nightmared 
by  an  administration  at  the  head  of  which  is  a  man 
who  knows  nothing  about  true  American  business, 
who  has  taken  his  catechism  from  New  York  im- 
porters, who  has  filled  his  cabinet  with  free  traders, 
who  has  flagellated  Cuban  Treaties  through  Con- 
gress, who  has  removed  faithful  custom  house  offi- 
cers in  order  that  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing 
Trust,  might  have  a  freer  hand,  and,  to  crown  all, 
lias  made  a  German  Agreement  which  practically 


destroys  whatever  real  protection  there  ever  was 
in  the  Dingley  Dike. 

The  wily  plaintiff  the  Importing  Trust,  has  great 
hopes  of  success.  It  thinks  in  addition  to  the  Ger- 
man Agreement,  it  will  get  a  downward  revision 
of  the  dike  within  a  reasonable  time.  It  feels  that 
its  campaign  against  our  client,  American  Produc- 
tion, its  maddening  of  the  thoughtless  people  to  a 
frenzy  about  the  "trusts"  and  their  sales  abroad 
cheaper  than  at  home,  and  all  its  wily  w^ays,  will 
soon  bear  a  rich  fruitage  of  commissions  and  brok- 
erages, as  it  sits  in  our  markets  once  more  supreme 
mistress  and  monopolist  there.  But  it  knows  that 
as  surely  as  the  sun  continues  to  shine,  it  no  sooner 
will  get  comfortably  seated  than  the  greatest  panic 
the  world  has  ever  known  in  any  country  will 
shake  this  devoted  land  from  end  to  end ;  and  it  has 
already  begun  to  hedge  against  such  an  event;  it 
already  is  devising  means  to  say  "This  panic  is 
none  of  my  doing.  Look !  Was  not  the  New  York 
panic  in  October,  1907,  the  result  of  the  Dingley 
Tariff?  Did  it  not  happen  while  the  country  was 
enjoying  the  highest  protective  tariff  it  ever  knew? 
How  can  you  charge  me  with  this  disaster,  when 
such  disasters  come,  protection  or  no  protection? 
You  cannot  shake  your  gory  locks  at  me.  You  can- 
not say  I  did  it."  It  is  laying  the  ground  for  this 
now,  your  Honors,  for  it  has  already  started  its 
chorus  amonc;  the  New  York  papers  who  owe  to  it 
their  lives.  Here  is  a  hymn  which  chants  to  heaven 
the  melodies  of  the  Importing  Trust : 

"A  PANIC  COME  HOME  TO  BOOST. 

"People  are  beginning  to  write  to  the  newspapers  to 
ask  if  this  is  to  be  known  as  the  'Roosevelt'  panic.  That 
is  comparatively  unimportant.  The  certain  and  signifi- 
cant thing  is  that  it  will  be  known  as  a  Republican  and 


143 

high- tariff  panic.  Protest  as  Republicans  may,  they  will 
be  held  responsible.  And  it  will  not  only  be  poetic  but 
political  justice  that  they  should  be. 

' '  Out  of  their  own  mouths  the  Republican  party  and  the 
Dingleyites  will  stand  condemned.  ***** 

"Whatever  other  effects  the  panic  may  have,  it  has 
at  least  dealt  a  death-blow  to  the  tariff  superstition. 
Perhaps  in  no  other  way  could  we  have  got  rid  of  it 
Hereafter,  any  man  who  uses  the  argument  that  you 
must  not  demand  the  abolition  of  tariff  outrages,  since, 
if  you  do,  you  will  imperil  prosperity,  will  be  laughed 
at.  The  way  is  at  last  open  to  attack  the  question  of 
protective  duties  in  statesmanlike  fashion,  without  hav- 
ing to  face  the  abuse  and  prejudice  and  idolatrous  ig- 
norance which  have  for  years  made  it  difficult  to  deal 
with  the  tariff  like  rational  men." 

Well,  your  Honors,  at  the  risk  of  being  laughed 
at,  at  least  by  this  creature  of  the  wily  plaintiff,  the 
Importing  Trust,  which  has  owned  it  for  over  a 
hundred  years,  we  are  going  to  say  that  the  whole 
prosperity  of  this  country  depends  entirely  on  'tar- 
iff outrages,"  if  that  expression  suits  the  gentle- 
man who  wrote  this  editorial.  We  say  this  with 
the  perfect  knowledge  that  nobody  in  this  or  any 
other  country  can  successfully  contradict  us.  We 
say  this  because,  if  any  one  has  a  grain  of  common 
business  sense,  he  knows  that  a  cost-100  country 
cannot  do  business  in  competition  with  a  cost-20 
world.  The  business-volume,  and,  therefore,  the 
prosperity-volume  depends,  as  we  have  said  be- 
fore, on  the  wage-volume,  and  the  wage-volume 
here  would  dwindle  towards  zero  the  moment  our 
domestic  market,  a  cost  and  wage-100  market, 
your  Honors,  were  opened  to  competition  with  the 
cost  and  wage-20  world.  This  is1  too  plain  for  any 
talk.  Therefore,  we  repeat  that,  not  only  will  an 
"abolition  of  tariff  outrages"  "imperil  prosperity," 
but  it  will  destroy  this  country  as  a  civilized  prop- 
osition. Any  business  man,  not  living  by  Import- 
ing-Trust  commissions,  not  only  knows  this,  but 


144 

will  say  so  even  at  the  risk  of  being  laughed  at 
by  some  Importing-Trust  donkey. 

And  we  are  going  to  repeat,  your  Honors,  that 
no  real  panic  ever  struck  this  country,  while  a 
good  tariff-dike  kept  production  and  value-making 
at  the  front  in  this  country.  We  have  had  dikes 
like  the  Dingley  Dike,  which  only  half  did  their 
business;  so  that,  in  time,  the  thing  became  so 
leaky  that  our  producers  were  put  out  of  the  mar- 
ket; and  then,  when  panics  and  depression  came 
on,  the  Importing  Trust  was  privileged  to  say,  as 
in  the  present  case,  that  the  "tariff  outrage"  had 
caused  the  panic.  The  October  panic  in  New  York, 
to  which  this  writer  refers,  was  not  a  real  busi- 
ness panic  at  all;  it  was  not  a  material  panic;  no- 
body failed;  the  banks  all  stood  pat.  It  was  a 
Christian  Science  panic,  all  in  your  mind,  your 
Honors,  all  in  the  thinking  so.  A  lot  of  copper 
securities,  worth  but  a  fraction  of  what  they  were 
puffed  up  to  be,  were  taken  by  a  great  bank  as 
collateral  to  loans.  Somebody  found  it  out — we 
believe  it  was  the  New  York  Clearing  House — and 
"peached."  Then  everybody  thought  that  every 
other  bank  was  just  as  bad;  and  so  everybody  ran 
for  his  money  and  made  a  "run"  on  some  half 
dozen  banks.  Why,  your  Honors,  that  was  no 
more  a  national,  business  and  property-panic, 
closing  mills,  throwing  millions  out  of  employ- 
ment, filling  the  land  with  starvation,  and  making 
soup-houses  the  only  real  thing,  than,  when  some- 
body hollers  fire  when  there  is  no  fire,  a  panic  in 
a  theatre  somewhere  in  a  little  city,  is  a  panic 
in  all  the  theatres  of  the  United  States.  And  yet 
this  rather  over-zealous  servant  of  the  wily  plain- 
tiff holds  it  up  as  a  real  panic  and  says  protec- 


145 

tion,  which  we  have  not  got,  is  the  reason  of  it, — 
just  hollers  "fire"  when  there  is  no  fire. 

If  we  are  tired  of  prosperity  at  any  time,  your 
Honors,  we  have  only  to  open  our  wage-100  mar- 
ket to  the  wage-20  world  and  our  demand  will  be 
landed  all  over  creation  rather  tfyan  in  our  mills', 
and  prosperity  will  be  no  more  and  panic  will 
claim  us  as  its  own.  Then  if  we  want  to  turn 
panic  out  and  get  prosperity  back  again,  all  we 
shall  have  to  do  is  to  close  our  ports,  and  turn 
our  one-hundred-and-seventy-thousand-million  dol- 
lar business1  demand  over  our  own  wheel  of  indus- 
try again  and  the  same  old  mill  will  grind  out 
prosperity  once  more  as  sure  as  fate  and  as  fine 
as  a  fiddle.  There  is  no  mystery  about  this.  No 
Christian  Science  in  the  whole  rig.  It  is  just 
plain  business.  We  are  not  prosperous  because 
we  feel  so;  but  we  are  prosperous  because  we  are 
so;  and  that  consists  in  getting  back  a  dollar  and 
five  cents  for  our  outlay  of  a  dollar,  which  is  a 
thing  we  never  can  do  when,  in  the  same  market, 
the  cost-20  world  is  bidding  against  us  and  our 
cost-100  product. 

But  as  to  whether  the  Christian  Science  flurry 
in  and  about  Wall  Street  in  October  last  was  a 
"Roosevelt"  panic  we  cannot  quite  say.  The  state  of 
the  public  mind  had  something  to  do  with  the  effect 
that  the  public  announcement  of  banking  rot- 
teness  had  upon  bank  depositors.  It  is  strange, 
surely,  that  people  should  think  all  the  banks 
were  rotten  because  one  was;  any  more 
than  they  should  think  all  men  are  bad  be- 
cause occasionally  or  semi-occasionally  a  man 
goes  wrong.  But  it  may  be  that  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
ravings  against  "malefactors  of  great  wealth," 
"swollen  fortunes,"  "very  rich  men,"  and  the  "bad 


146 

corporations,"  in  sonit:  way  made  thoughtless 
people  count  all  banks  and  moneyed  institutions 
as  being  tarred  with  the  same  stick;  so  that  when 
it  seemed  as  if  the  rottenness  had  reached  the 
banks,  it  set  a  lot  of  people  skeery.  That  is  all 
there  was  of  the  panic  which,  according  to  the 
Importing  Trust  parrot  from  which  we  have  just 
quoted,  proves  the  tariff -dike  a  failure.  There  was 
some  Roosevelt  in  it,  no  doubt.  The  public  mind 
was  ready  to  suspect  all  sorts  of  trouble,  because 
its  Chief  Magistrate  had  gone  batty  on  the  same 
subject.  And  what  he  said  about  it  had  more  in- 
fluence, because  it  was  more  advertised. 

But,  your  Honors,  we  somehow  think  people 
take  Mr.  Roosevelt  altogether  too  seriously.  He 
is  a  great  show.  A  good  deal  of  an  actor.  When 
he  is  sober  he  does  not  more  than  half  believe 
himself  what  he  says  so  earnestly  under  the  demi' 
divine  afflatus.  But  he  is  a  good  self-hypnotizer, 
a  self-suggester  into  all  sorts  of  situations  and 
moods.  He  has  a  very  large  talent  for  imitation- 
Mr.  Bryan  says  he  imitated  him — and  only  mod- 
erate talent  for  sticking  to  a  thing;  and  when  he 
has  the  "power"  he  naturally  thinks  he  is  the  man 
or  mood  he  is  unconsciously  imitating.  But  he  soon 
switches  off  on  to  a  sidetrack  somewhere,  blows 
off  steam,  draws  his  fires;  and  goes  to  sleep. 
When  he  wakes  up,  he  is  ashamed  of  himself  be- 
cause he  thinks  he  has  let  up  a  little  on  "my  poli- 
cies" and  he  clambers  on  to  the  nearest  platform 
car  in  the  train  and  says  he  has  not  forgot,  even 
if  some  malefactors  of  great  wealth,  just  to  dis- 
credit him,  have  conspired  to  bring  on  money- 
trouble  in  Wall  Street.  Then,  too,  besides  being 
a  great  mimic  of  manly  moods  and  an  all-'round 
self-fooler,  he  likes  praise,  that  is,  to  be  tickled 


147 

because  he  is  so  good.  Jiis  love  of  praise  is  very 
strong;  and  in  addition  to  this  we  have  in  our 
Hero  a  weakness  in  reasoning  power  and  a  not  too 
over-grown  benevolence,  linked  to  great  love  of 
blood-letting.  Why  your  Honors,  he  gets  so  thirsty 
for  blood  that  when  malefactors  of  great  wealth 
have  all  reached  the  tall  timber,  he  has  to  cut  off 
into  the  swamps  and  hunt  deer  and  bear  and  other 
innocent  things;  unless,  perhaps,  he  runs  across 
a  herd  of  Mississippi  pilots  on  his  way  afield. 
We  think,  your  Honors,  a  study  of  these  few  and 
simple  characteristics1  pretty  well  accounts  for  Mr. 
Roosevelt.  He  does  love  praise  so  much  that,  if 
he  should  stay  President  long  enough  and  exchange 
all  he  now  has  left  to  swap  for  a  tickling,  namely, 
the  rest  of  our  markets,  for  such  a  tipsy  titilation 
as  those  which  coaxed  from  him  the  Cuban  Treaty, 
Wakeman's  dismissal,  and  the  German  agreement, 
he  would  be  the  unhappiest  man  in  the  world. 
Then,  your  Honors,  he  is  an  impetuous  thing.  This 
taken  in  connection  with  his1  love  of  the  lime-light 
and  his  weak  benevolence  makes  him  a  good  deal 
of  a  savage.  Look  at  the  way  he  publicly  jumped 
on  poor  innocent  old  Tyner  and  pushed  him  into 
his  grave!  And  how  he  dismissed  from  the  ser- 
vice a  whole  battalion  of  colored  boys  without 
any  proof  of  guilt  against  any  one  of  them!  And 
then  the  way  he  whirled  down  on  poor  Nicholls, 
the  pilot  of  the  Hartwig,  was  something  scandal- 
ous. And  in  this  matter,  too,  his  action  carried 
him  right  up  to  if  not  across  the  impeachment 
line.  He  could  not  remove  Nicholls,  but  he  could 
remove  the  men  who  could  remove  Nicholls  if  they 
refused  to  remove  Nicholls.  And  he  made  them 
do  it,  illegally,  too;  for  the  steamboat  inspectors 
had  no  right  to  remove  the  pilot  unless  he  was 


148 

proven  guilty  of  a  breach  of  the  rules;  and  they 
not  only  could  not  prove  he  had  been  so  guilty 
but  it  was  proved  to  them  by  a  cloud  of  expert 
witnesses  that  he  had  not.  Nevertheless,  this 
Apostle  of  the  Square  Deal  himself  condemned 
and  executed  this  poor  man  on  the  spot,  without 
judge  or  jury,  when  the  law  provides1  that  no  such 
pilot  can  be  dismissed  except  after  his  day  in  court 
and  the  proving  that  he  has  broken  the  rules. 
If  anything  much  worse  than  this  was  ever  done 
by  Nero,  we  have  failed  to  note  it.  Your  Honors, 
we  do  not  know  what  Mr.  Roosevelt  calls  himself 
when  he  does  such  things  as  that,  but  when  we  use 
our  power  to  remove  a  steamboat  inspector  to  make 
him  remove  an  innocent  pilot,  whom  the  steam- 
boat inspector  has  no  cause  to  remove,  and  all  be- 
cause in  some  way  said  pilot  has  ruffled  our  im- 
perial dignity,  we  call  ourselves  an  undesirable 
citizen.  This  sort  of  conduct  is  hardly  moral. 
But  is  not  Mr.  Koosevelt  moral?  Yes;  but  his 
morality  is  all  under  heavy  bonds  to  love  of 
praise,  love  of  a  scrap  and  "my  policies."  Your 
Honors,  that  single  case  of  the  Pilot  Nicholls,  to 
say  nothing  about  the  Brownsville  matter,  our  ven- 
erable friend  Tyner,  Dr.  Long,  and  the  rest,  proves 
to  us  that  we  are  right  in  saying  that  Mr.  Koose- 
velt is  a  natural  actor,  an  impersonator  of  moods 
and  manners,  and  that  really  his  "square  deal" 
sentiment  is  for  political  use  only.  We  do  not 
ask  his  pardon  for  this  opinion  and  this  expression 
of  it.  He  has^  convicted  himself.  The  Constitu- 
tion guarantees  to  us  all  "the  equal  protection  of 
the  laws;"  and  Mr.  Roosevelt,  as  President,  is 
charged  to  "take  care  that  the  laws  be  faithfully 
executed;"  that  is,  laws  pertaining  to  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States;  and  yet,  instead  of 


149 

seeing  that  the  United  States  law  governing  the 
misdemeanors  of  pilots  was  "faithfully  executed," 
he  took  especial  care  to  see  that,  by  the  breaking 
of  the  laws  for  his  personal  spite,  they  were  vio- 
lated and  a  pilot  irretrievably  wronged. 

The  American  people  are  indulgent  towards  the 
nnspanked,  roistering  boy.  They  smile  at  pranks 
of  his  which  they  would  jail  a  full-grown  for. 
Whether  as  a  sophomore  in  college  he  hazes  the 
freshmen  in  their  dormitories  or  as  a  freshman 
in  the  White  House  he  hazes  the  seniors  on  Capi- 
tal Hill,  it  is  all  the  same.  Boys  will  be  boys', 
and  the  unspanked  boy,  the  bous  en  polei,  is  the 
favorite  of  the  dear  America  public. 

People  should  mind  their  eyes  as  well  as  their 
hasty  hearts.  A  study  of  the  Roosevelt  physiog- 
nomy is  worth  while.  If  the  wolf  and  the 
bear  are  the  strongest  in  us,  w-e  admire  the  same 
quadrupeds  in  others.  A  study  of  the  out- 
side tells  us  what  there  is  inside;  for  people  are 
as  hands'ome  or  as  homely  on  the  inside  as  they 
are  on  the  out.  Hero-worship  is  dangerous;  un- 
less the  hero  is  dead  or  out  of  office.  It  paralyzes 
common  sense  and  puts  blinders  over  eyes  that 
otherwise  could  see. 

It  does  not  s'eem  to  us,  your  Honors,  that  a 
man  of  this  mold  and  make  should  very  seriously 
influence  the  public  mind.  He  has  shown  a  very 
large  lack  of  just  appreciation  of  his  true  position 
as  President  of  the  United  States.  He  had  been 
a  Governor  of  a  State  and  when  he  became  Presi- 
dent did  not  seem  to  think  there  was  any  change 
of  jurisdiction.  As  he  would  have  recommended 
to  a  State  Legislature  laws  governing  corpora- 
tions, so  he  recommended  to  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States  laws  governing  corporations,  al- 


150 

though  the  Constitution  ^ives  Congress  no  power 
to   monkey   with   State   citizenship   in   this   way. 
For,  of  course,  every  corporation  is  a  citizen  of 
the  State  of  its  organization ;  and  although  another 
State  may  make  rules1  for  the  admission  of  for- 
eign corporations  to  denizenship  within  the  State, 
the  Congress  of  the  United  States  has  no  power 
whatever  to  dictate  terms   to   corporations    more 
than  to  individuals.     It  has  no  right  to  look  into 
the  organization,  stock  issue,  property-holding,  or 
any  other  matter  connected  either  with  an  indi- 
vidual person   or  a  corporation  within  a   State. 
Mr.  Roosevelt  says  that  some  general  national  law 
should  place  corporations  under  the  supervision 
of  the  general  Government,  in  the  same  manner 
as  the  national  banks  are  so   placed.    But   Mr. 
Koosevelt   seems   to   overlook   the   fact   that   the 
national  banks  are  the  creation  of  Congress  origin- 
ally ;  and  that  we  may  have  State  banks  over  which 
Congress    has    no    control.      Congress    alone    has 
power  "to  coin  money  and  regulate  the  value  there- 
of," and  "to  borrow  money  on  the  credit  of  the 
United  States ;"  and  these  functions  have  a  peculiar 
connection  with  the  subject  of  banking,   and  to 
create   and    oversee    a    series   of   national   banks 
might  well  be  within  the  "general  welfare"  pro- 
vision of  the  Constitution,  specifically  in  view  of 
the  exclusive  power  of  Congress  over  coinage  and 
so  over  currency.    But  the  "general  welfare"  clause 
is  void  for  indefiniteness  except  when  given  defi- 
niteness1  in  matters  specifically  indicated  in  sub- 
sequent   clauses;    and    the    interstate    commerce 
clause  or  the  post-roads  clause  cannot  be  construed 
in  any  wise  so  as  to  give  Congress  the  power  of 
going  into  a  State  and  regulating  the  affairs  of 
corporations.     As  we  shall  elsewhere  argue,  the 


151 

power  of  Congress  to  "regulate  commerce"  is  only 
power  in  rem;  and,  to  use  that  power  to  block  the 
interstate  traffic  of  a  corporation,  unless  it  showed 
up  its  books  and  admitted  Federal  officers  to  hold 
inquest  over  its1  private  methods,  would  be  a  species 
of  blackmail  to  stoop  to  which  would  put  Congress 
on  the  level  of  the  official  who  jammed  the  Cuban 
Treaty  through  Congress1  by  holding  over  Con- 
gressmen the  power  of  destroying  their  hold  on 
their  constituencies,  by  special  press-agency  treat- 
ment and  the  appointing  power. 

But  the  strongest  reason  why  the  public  should 
not  take  Mr.  Koos'evelt  too  seriously  is  that  to  get 
the  public  to  take  him  too  seriously  is  part  of 
his  trade;  and  in  order  to  get  the  public  into  this 
frame  of  mind,   he  knows  there  is  nothing  like 
judicious  advertising — taking  the  public  into  his 
confidence,    except    in    making    Roosevelt- Sterjn- 
burg-Wilhelm-Second  trade  agreements1,  in  which 
the  public  are  the  most  interested  but  the  least 
"let  on."     In  short  Mr.  Roosevelt  is  a  politician 
of  politicians.     It  is  said  by  some  that  he  is  the 
keenest  politician  in  the  United  States;  and  the 
United  States1  grows  some  pretty  good  politicians. 
But  then  Mr.  Roosevelt  has  had  oceans  of  experi- 
ence.    He  has  been  pulling   political    wires    ever 
since  he  got  out  of  Knickerbockers.     Most  of  us 
remember  how  he  ran   for  mayor  of  New  York 
something  like  twenty  years  ago — we  believe  he 
was  not  thirty  at  the  time;  and  it  takes  a  good 
doal  of  political  skill  to  get  put  on  a  big  party's 
ticket  for  mayor  of  such  a  place  as  New  York.    And 
over  since  his  Knickerbocker  days  he  has  always 
boon  a  candidate  for  some  kind  of  an  office.     He 
pursues  politics  as  he  does  bears1.     He  loves  the 
excitement  of  the  chase.     Now,  we  believe  Mr, 


152 

Roosevelt  is  no  more  human  than  the  rest  of  us — 
and  no  less.  And  when  the  rest  of  us  live  by  poli- 
tics, we  sometimes  have  to  do  things  we  would 
hardly  have  the  nerve  to  consult  our  Heavenly 
Father  about  before  doing;  and  we  do  not  believe 
Mr.  Roosevelt  is  any  better  than  we  are.  For  in- 
stance, we  do  not  believe  Mr.  Roosevelt  consulted 
the  Throne  of  Grace  before,  in  a  "practical"  sense, 
asking  Mr.  Harriman  for  that  $250,000  to  help 
out  the  Republican  campaign  in  New  York,  just 
before  election  day,  when  there  were  no  more  ex- 
penses for  torch-light  processions,  public  halls, 
public  speakers  and  public  booze.  We  do  not 
know  the  very  reason  why  Mr.  Roosevelt  asked 
Mr.  Harriman  for  the  money  or  anything  about  it 
or  why  he  intimated  that  it  was  a  "practical"  prop- 
osition but  we  do  not  believe  he  wanted  it  spent  to 
carry  the  true  gospel  to  the  East  Side  slums'. 
Again,  we  do  not  believe  he  sought  divine  guid- 
ance when  he  wrote  the  letter  to  a  friend  saying 
that  a  bright  idea  had  struck  him,  or  words  to  that 
effect;  and  that  he  thought  it  might  pan  out  in 
popularity  to  take  a  crack  at  the  corporations, 
"swollen  fortunes,"  or  something  of  the  kind. 
We  have  forgotten  the  exact  language,  but  it  was 
going  the  rounds  of  the  press  sometime  ago  and 
those  interested  can  look  it  up.  Now,  in  all  this, 
your  Honors',  Mr.  Roosevelt  has  seemed  to  us  like 
a  very  human  sort  of  a  politician.  Even  his  thirst 
for  the  blood  of  "malefactors  of  great  wealth"  and 
"bad  corporations"  is  only  the  ordinary  political 
thirst  for  a  campaign  issue.  He  is  arranging  his 
political  samples  in  his  political  shop-window  and 
asking  the  public  to  purchase.  If  he  has  a  bar- 
gain sale  of  dead  "bad  corporations"  and  dead 
"malefactors  of  great  wealth"  and  the  public  are 


153 

interested  in  that  sort  of  goods,  why,  he  will  drive 
a  thriving  political  business1;  but  if  they  get  tired 
of  that  line  of  goods,  he  will  sit  down,  like  any 
other  shopkeeper,  and  think  up  a  new  line.  He 
had  just  thought  up  a  new  line  when  he  wrote  to 
the  friend  the  letter  alluded  to.  People  should  get 
it  out  of  their  heads  that  Mr.  Koosevelt  is  more 
of  a  saint  or  more  of  a  sinner  than  any  other 
human  being.  If  we  were  in  his  business,  we 
would  do  as  be  does — that  is  the  most  human  of 
us;  we  would  study  out  the  thing  the  public 
wanted  most,  and  the  public  would  get  it.  Now 
as  to  this  pursuit  of  "very  rich  men,"  "swollen 
fortunes,"  etc.,  it  is  simply  a  matter  of  politics. 
It  is  always  right  with  oi  poloi  to  curse  out  wealth. 
And  it  is  just  as  popular  to  discover  that  Dis- 
honesty is  running  away  with  the  country.  But 
people  are  the  same,  yesterday,  today,  and 
forever..  The  rich  have  we  always  with 
us;  and  the  dishonest  grow  on  every  bush.  They 
are  no  strangers.  It  is  just  as  bad  a  speculation 
to  be  rich  or  to  be  dishonest  now  as  it  ever  was, 
and  no  worse.  But  if  Mr.  Roosevelt,  in  his  func- 
tion of  office-seeker  and  all-round  politician,  can 
make  the  public  believe  that  it  was  never  risky 
either  to  be  rich  or  to  be  dishonest  until  he  came 
to  town  and  that  that  has  always  been  just  what 
ails  us;  and  that  no  rich  or  dishonest  man  was 
ever  caught  in  the  act  until  Mr.  Roosevelt  broke 
into  the  Presidency,  why,  your  Honors,  the  gud- 
geons he  thus  catches  are  the  reward  of  his 
angling,  and  who  is  kicking?  But  we  do  not  see 
how  the  public  can  forget  that  the  woods  are  full 
of  hunters  for  Malefactors  of  Great  Wealth  and 
for  Dishonesty,  and  that  all  you  have  to  do  is  to 
pay  your  money  and  take  your  choice.  Let  us 


154 

understand  that  it  is  now  and  always  has  been 
only  the  common  game  of  politicians  to  get  after 
the  rich  and  the  dishonest,  although  it  is  a  toss- 
up  whether  it  is  a  case  for  politicians  or  the  Pink- 
ertons,  with  the  chances  of  a  cleaner  game  on  the 
side  of  the  latter.  Do  we  not  all  know  how  softly 
sweet  sounds  the  tinkling  of  the  word  "reform?" 
And  what  is  that  but  a  calling  back  to  Poverty, 
Chastity,  Honesty,  and  the  public  crib?  Is  there 
anything  that  reaches  the  public  ear  more  quickly 
than  the  story  that  you  have  tried  to  save  the  dear 
public's  dollars  by  catching  the  thief  or  making 
a  rich  man  pay  double  taxes? 

Now  would  not  any  politician,  Mr.  Roosevelt 
or  any  other,  naturally  work  the  old  vein  as  far 
as  it  would  go?  Well,  that  is  just  what  he  has 
been  doing  all  along,  no  disgrace  to  him.  For  it 
is  his  trade;  his  business;  and  we  ought  not  to 
make  a  demi-god  or  a  great  hero  out  of  him  for 
doing  what  all  other  politicians  always  have  done 
and  for  the  same  purpose.  The  only  difference 
between  Mr.  Roosevelt  and  some  others  is  that  he 
"takes  the  public  into  his  confidence"  somewhat 
inorp  srenerously — whenever  it  suits  film.  For  it 
does  not  always  suit  him ;  and  that  fact  proves 
that  he  is  a  politician  pure  and  simple  and  does 
everything  for  his  own  success  and  only  inci- 
dentallv  for  the  good  of  the  public.  He  makes  a 
loud  crv  when  he  runs  down  the  Standard  Oil 
Tomoanv  that  can  bring  no  fish  to  his  political 
ru4.  vmless  ho  kills  it  and  holds  up  its'  gory  sr^1^ 
to  the  public;  but  ho  does  not  even  whisper  to  the 
hisrhlv  interested  public  what  he  is  doing  by  way 
of  a  German  Agreement,  even  when  it  is  going  to 
break  w  the  business  of  thousands  of  our  people 
and  bring  aotunl  starvation  to  large  numbers. 


155 

lie  has  his  own  reasons  for  being  frank  in  the  one 
case  and  the  reverse  in  the  other.  He  merely  treats 
the  public  as  a  good  thing  to  "work"  in  any  way 
it  pans  out  most.  The  people  like  to  be  flattered 
by  being  taken  into  the  confidence  of  the  Presi- 
dent; and  they  are  lazy  enough  to  like  to  believe 
that  at  last  a  man  has  been  found  who  will  "stand 
without  hitching"  and  attend  to  the  public  busi- 
ness and  let  them  nap.  And,  in  this  everlasting 
battle  of  wits,  Mr.  Koosevelt  is  entitled,  to  let 
them,  if  they  will,  fool  themselves  into  thinking 
he  is  but  little  lower  than  the  angels;  and  he  has 
been  shrewd  enough  to  understand  human  nature 
in  these  matters  and  to  profit  by  it.  But  he  is  no 
saint,  no  superman,  no  demi-god.  He  is  just  a 
man,  like  the  rest  of  us;  and  none  of  us  is  yet  suf- 
fering from  cutting  wings  and  the  prick  of  the 
celestial  pin-feathers. 

But  there  is  one  thing  that  puzzles  us  amaz- 
ingly and  that  is  how  the  people  could  so  soon 
have  been  fooled  into  thinking  an  ordinary  stren- 
uous politician  with  a  press-agency  was  the  real 
thing,  when  he  stepped  out  of  an  accidental  vice- 
presidency  into  the  shoes  of  the  benign  and  refined 
Mclvinley.  With  such  a  pattern  for  comparison, 
it  beats  our  time  how  the  public  failed  to  see  the 
difference  between  a  real  statesman,  fully  worthy 
to  sit  in  the  seat  of  Washington,  Lincoln  and 
Grant,  and  a  politician  pure  and  simple.  Mr. 
McKinley  never  raved  up  and  down  the  land  de- 
nouncing "very  rich  men"  or  "malefactors  of  great 
wealth"  or  made  capital  of  his  purpose  to  "control 
monopolies''  or  "supervise  great  wealth  in  busi- 
ness, especially  in  corporate  form."  Probably  Mr. 
McKinley  knew  he  could  not  do  any  of  these  things 
and  to  pretend  that  he  could,  when  he  knew  he 


156 

could  not  deliver  the  goods,  even  to  raise  an  altar 
for  incense-burning  to  himself,  was  far  beneath  a 
gentleman  and  a  statesman  of  the  McKinley  type. 
But  then  Mr.  McKinley  was  not  a  politician. 
But  we  repeat  that  what  gets  our  wind  is  the  fact 
that  these  two  types,  each  perfect  in  itself,  the 
perfect  statesman  and  gentleman,  and  the  perfect 
politician  and  trust-buster,  should  have  stood  off 
against  each  other  in  such  strong  relief  and  the 
public  should  not  have  noticed  the  difference  be- 
tween them.  That  Mr.  Roosevelt  can  make  capi- 
tal by  saying  he  is  going  to  do  things  that  can't 
be  done  under  our  Constitution  puts  us  in  a  di- 
lemma: We  must  either  believe  he  is  so  ignorant 
that  he  does  not  know  he  can't  do  these  things, 
or  that  he  is  so  much  of  a  politician  that  he  does 
not  care  whether  he  can  or  not  as  long  as  he  gets 
the  glorv  which,  for  making  the  attempt,  the  igno- 
rant will  cover  him  with. 

Whatever  is  said  or  thought  about  Mr.  Roose- 
velt, there  is  one  thing  certain  and  that  is  he  is 
a  thorough  success  as  a  politician.  He  knows 
human  nature  from  the  ground  up.  He  knows 
how  to  play  on  the  fanaticism,  the  ignorance  and 
the  blind  devotion  of  the  multitude;  and  how  to 
make  the  hopes  and  the  fears  of  his  fellow  poli- 
ticians bring  him  the  largest  crop  of  points  in 
the  political  game.  For,  whatever  they  think  of 
him,  however  much  they  hate  him  for  his  stren- 
uous handling  of  their  private  rights,  and  how- 
ever much  thev  curse  him  in  private,  they  follow 
him  in  public  like  little  lambs.  There  is  no  doubt 
but  what  Mr.  Roosevelt  has  this  influence  by  what 
some  would  call  an  unscrupulous  use  of  the  inci- 
dental power  of  his  position  as  President;  the 
power  which  his  prestige  as  the  highest  Govern- 


157 

ment  official  gives  him,  in  the  first  instance,  and, 
in  the  second,  the  actual  power  to  use  his  govern- 
mental attributes  to  reward  or  punish  those  who 
either  do  or  do  not  sit  into  his  personal  game. 
Of  course,  this  conduct  of  his,  pure  Jacksonian 
as  it  is,  is  not  only  unjust  but  very  much  to  be 
blamed  from  every  point  of  view.  And  that  he  uses 
power  in  this  way  is  pretty  well  attested  by  the 
fact  that  there  are  more  people  in  Washington  this 
moment  who  have  had  their  sacred  sense  of  jus- 
tice wounded  by  some  freak  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
than  would  be  necessary,  if  all  the  facts  were 
known  and  understood,  to  destroy  forever  the 
meteoric  popularity  which  he  now  enjoys.  And 
yet  nobody  dares  speak;  not  because  anybody  is 
afraid  of  Mr.  Roosevelt  personally — there  are 
thousands  of  as  good  men  physically  and  men- 
tally in  every  city  of  any  size — but  because  of  this 
fortuitous  power  with  which  the  Presidency  has 
clothed  him  and  with  which  he  can  do  almost  mor- 
tal harm  to  those  who  offend  him.  This  is  so 
much  so  that  during  the  last  presidential  cam- 
paign, when  the  country  seemed  aflame  with  en- 
thusiasm for  Mr.  Roosevelt,  it  was  freely  said  in 
AVasliington,  and  among  the  politicians  of  the 
Republican  party,  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  was  a  man 
for  whom  everybody  was  shouting  and  whom  no- 
body wanted. 

Now,  your  Honors,  wo  have  loyally  accounted 
for  Mr.  Roosevelt's  onslaught  upon  "monopolies," 
"givat  wealth  in  business,  especially  in  corporate 
form/'  He.,  He.,  on  the  ground  that  Mr.  Roosevelt 
is  a  simple  and  innocent  politician,  like  all  the  rest 
of  us  in  politics,  just  working  an  old,  old  vein  for 
all  it  Is  worth ;  just  doing  as  old  Andy  Jackson  did, 
when  ho  clomb  all  over  the  banks  and  generallv  set 


158 

the  poor  against  the  rich  and  basked  in  the  lime- 
light of  sans  calotte  popularity.  But  there  is  an- 
other version  of  the  matter  from  which  we  shrink 
with  horror,  considering  our  paternal  interest  in 
the  President.  There  are  those  who  see  in  Mr. 
Roosevelt  more  than  the  ordinary  politician  in  the 
political  sense.  They  see  in  him  a  politician  with 
dreams  far  beyond  those  of  avarice,  mounting  to 
the  shining  heights  of  despotic  power,  with  the  Lord 
only  knows  what  a  cloud-capped  Olympian  throne 
at  the  top.  These  people  say  that  it  is  not  merely  to 
get  the  wins  culotte  and  the  petroleum  fiends  on  his 
side  that  causes  him  so  fiercely  to  go  for  "malefac- 
tors of  great  wealth"  and  shut  his  eyes  to  our  real 
criminal  class  of  the  city  slums.  They  say  that 
he  should  logically  begin  with  the  city  slums  in  his 
reformation  of  the  country's  morals  by  butting  into 
State  affairs;  because  the  slums  give  no  bonds  for 
uood  behavior  in  the  shape  of  "great  wealth,"  which 
keeps  its  criminal  owners  anchored  and  reachable 
at  any  time,  but  the  slums  are  flying  light  for  prop- 
erty and  may  take  the  next  steamer  to  Europe,  be- 
yond the  reach  of  the  arrows  of  our  presidential 
Long  Bow ;  it  is  not  alone  for  the  voices  and  votes 
of  pomilistic  human  souls — although  these  are  good 
nroperty — which  makes*  Mr.  Roosevelt  "play  to  the 
galleries"  and  jam  futile  laws  through  Congress 
aimed  at  "great  wealth  in  business,  especially  in 
corporate  form,"  but  that  he  really  wishes  to  de- 
stroy the  only  force,  viz.,  conservative  wealth  in 
harmonious*  movement,  which  stands  in  the  way  of 
l>is  vaulting  ambitions.  He  wishes  to  dissolve  our 
Standard  Oil  Companies,  put  all  our  railroads  in 
terror  of  his  power  and  make  them  his  allies,  and 
then  go  onward  and  upward,  ever  upward  to  the 


159 

dizziest  heights'  of    fame    ever   reached    by  mortal 
foot. 

That  is  what,  some  think.  Others  think  this : 
It  is  true  that  there  is  no  limit  to  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
ambition.  And  there  seems  no  limit  to  the  elas- 
ticity of  his'  conscience  when  ambition  is  speeding 
his  red-devil  car.  There  is  some  plausibility,  at 
least,  in  this  belief  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  hates  con- 
servative wealth,  both  because  it  offends  his  dignity 
and  pride  to  feel  that  conservative  wealth  is  even 
greater  than  he,  the  lionized  hero  of  the  populace, 
and  because  it  stands  in  his  way  to  greater  things. 
Mr.  Roosevelt  is  a  man  of  but  moderate  fortune 
himself.  He  feels  that  he  is  Heaven's  own  sou  in 
his  Titanic  popular  role  of  the  all-saver  of  his 
country's  morals  and  that  politics  are  only  means 
to  a  Heaven-favored  end.  Therefore,  away  with 
everything  that  makes  against  him — away  with 
"'malefactors  of  great  wealth";  away  with  the  Su- 
preme Court;  away  with  the  Constitution!  What 
are  these  but  worn-out  tools  of  righteousness1?  Aim 
is  not  righteousness  the  great  aim  of  government? 

Piqued  pride  at  the  thought  that  he  is  not  quite 
supreme,  and  the  hope  of  writing  "my  policies" 
large  on  American  history,  may  well  explain  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  unceasing  pursuit  of  "great  wealth." 
Wealth  is  congealed  conservatism.  It  cannot  mix 
with  Rooseveltism.  Therefore,  out  on  the  whole 
horrid  heap  of  it ! 

That  there  is  a  deep  feeling  among  our  most 
thoughtful  citizens  that  Rooseveltism  is  all  wrong 
crops  out  every  now  and  then,  in  spite  of  the  terror- 
is'm  which  a  terrorized  press  causes  to  paralyze  pro- 
test ing  tongues.  And  some  time  ago,  at  New  Ha- 
ven, Connecticut,  at  the  annual  banquet  of  the  New 
Haven  Economics  Club,  Mr.  John  W.  Ailing  had 


160 

his  frank  say.  Mr.  Ailing  is  one  of  the  foremost 
lawyers  in  Connecticut;  president  of  the  New  Ha- 
ven County  Bar  Association;  president  of  a  fire 
insurance  company;  a  director  in  several  banks; 
and  president  of  the  club  above  named.  He  said 
this : 

"  'My  policy,'  not  necessarily  that  of  the  Republican 
party,  but  'my  policy,'  for  the  carrying  out  of  which 
'I  am  pledged  during  my  term  and  shall  see  to  it  that 
my  successor  shall  be  a  President  who  will  also  carry  it 
out,'  is  that  the  Federal  Government  shall  have  and 
exercise  the  power  to  control,  regulate  and  restrain  large 
business  wealth  engaged  in  interstate  commerce. 

"President  Roosevelt  is  alone  responsible  for  raising 
the  railroad  rate  question.  It  was  not  a  plank  in  the 
Republican  platform.  In  the  Senate  it  did  not  command 
a  majority  of  the  Republicans.  In  the  Senate  committee 
the  Republicans  and  Democrats  combined  against  it, 
and  this  Rooseveltian  measure  was  intrusted  to  a  Demo- 
crat, Senator  Tillman.  The  overwhelming  popularity  of 
President  Roosevelt  jammed  it  through." 

Here  Mr.  Ailing  is  not  quite  correct.  AVhat 
jammed  it  through  was  the  fear  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
press-agency  which  overawed  Congressmen.  We 
shall  explain  this  press-agency  later.  Mr.  Roose- 
velt's popularity  is  largely  an  artificial  product  of 
this  press-agency.  AVe  read  further : 

"Now  what  has  been  the  result?  From  the  instant 
it  appeared  likely  that  the  power  to  fix  rates  was  to  be 
taken  from  the  railroads  and  put  into  the  hands  of  com- 
missioners in  the  interest  of  the  shippers,  commissioners 
every  one  of  whom  could  be  removed  at  once  by  Mr. 
Roosevelt," — 

Could  Mr.  Roosevelt  have  removed  Judge  Lan- 
dis,  your  Honors,  if  Judge  Landis  had  failed  to 
"soak"  the  Standard  Oil  Company? 

"every  one  of  whom  could  be  removed  at  once  by  Mr. 
Roosevelt,  the  value  of  railroad  properties  began  to  de- 
cline and  their  credit  to  disappear.  Railroads  are  obliged 
to  stop  improvements.  Their  power  to  raise  the  neces- 


161 

sary  capital  has  vanished.  The  havoc  wrought  by  this 
Roosevelt  crusade  against  railroad  capital  runs  up  into 
the  billions  of  dollars.  It  affects  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  individuals,  every  savings  bank,  every  benefit  so- 
ciety, every  fire  or  life  insurance  company,  and  through 
these  sources  the  whole  community,  and  this  so-called 
statesman,  President  Roosevelt,  not  content  with  the 
havoc  already  wrought,  is  determined  that  Congress  shall 
further  regulate,  control,  and  restrain  railroads. 

"President  Roosevlt  has  shown  himself  bitterly  hostile 
to  large  corporate  wealth.  His  aim  has  been  to  break 
it  up." 


Because  he  hates  what  is  bigger  than  he  is,  your 
Honors?  Because  it  blocks  the  road  to  his  ambi- 
tion's goal,  your  Honors?  Or  because,  when  he  has 
busted  its  bronco  back,  he  hopes  to  hitch  it  all  to 
his  chariot? 

"His  aim  has  been  to  break  it  up.  He  has  disdained 
all  party  policy  in  his  grand,  lofty  way.  It  has  always 
been  'my  policy.'  The  constitution  has  not  stood  in  his 
way. 

"This  is  not  the  statesmanship  of  a  constitutional 
President.  It  is  a  revolution  and  a  substitution  of  abso- 
lutism under  a  Presidential  monarchy." 

"President  Roosevelt  has  assumed  that  he  is  the 
United  States  Government.  It  is  true  he  is  immensely 
popular  with  the  masses." 

The  poor,  unsuspecting  masses,  your  Honors, 
who  little  know  how  they  have  been  "worked"  by 
the  White  House  press-agency  and  the  Cuckoo  Me- 
lodens  Roosevelti! 


"It  is  true  he  is  immensely  popular  with  the  masses. 
So  were  the  leaders  of  the  old  crusades  against  the  un- 
speakable Turk.  They  did  not  do  much  harm  to  the  Turk 
but  they  wrought  untold  misery  on  their  blind  followers. 
Mr.  Roosevelt  is  essentially  like  those  old  crusade  leaders, 
powerful,  arrogant,  conceited,  with  a  halo  of  Heavenly  in- 
spiration, a  born  leader  bound  by  no  party  ties,  himself 
the  whole  thing  in  searcn  ox  valiant  deeds" — 


Your  Honors',  Mr.  Ailing  puts  Mr.  Roosevelt  on 
a  more  dangerous  footing  than  we  have  dared  to  do. 
It  is  lofty  heroics  which  hurry  Mr.  Roosevelt  on  his 


162 

intrepid  way,  and  not  sordid  polities.  But  we  will 
not  take  issue  with  Mr.  Ailing.  He  may  be  right 
after  all. 

.—"himself  the  whole  thing  in  search  of  valiant  deeds, 
claiming  a  supernatural  power  to  detect  and  uncover  and 
punish  the  wealthy  malefactor,  foUowed,  as  he  thinks,  by 
the  whole  people. 

"He  is  the  most  dangerous  force  to  constitutional 
liberty  that  has  ever  existed  in  this  country." 

These  be  hard  words,  your  Honors,  but  has  not 
Mr.  Roosevelt  brought  them  on  himself? 

"He  is  the  most  dangerous  force  to  constitutional 
liberty  that  has  ever  existed  in  this  country.  He  has 
taken  the  press  by  the  nape  of  the  neck  and  to  a  great 
extent  forced  it  to  do  his  bidding." 

All  too  true,  your  Honors.  And  we  admit  that 
this  is  really  a  dangerous  feature  of  the  situation. 
The  power  of  the  press  is  almighty.  And  when  a 
man  chains  the  press  to  his  obedient  service,  he 
comes  pretty  near  being  a  troublesome  proposition. 

"He  has  taken  the  press  by  the  nape  of  the  neck  and 
to  a  great  extent  forced  it  to  do  his  bidding. 

"Notoriously,  President  Eoosevelt  does  not  respect  the 
independence  of  the  judiciary" — 

Too  true,  again,  your  Honors  any  more  than  he 
respects  the  independence  of  our  law-makers  in 
Congress.  He  terrorizes  Congress  as  he  terrorizes 
the  newspapers,  and  plots1  against  the  independence 
of  the  judiciary.  Oh,  Catiline! 

"President  Eoosevelt  does  not  respect  the  independence 
of  the  judiciary.  In  the  great  New  York  Circuit  two  of 
the  three  Judges  of  the  Circuit  Court  of  Appeals  are  of 
his  appointment.  His  Attorney-General,  a  man  after  his 
own  heart,  was  by  him  appointed  to  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States.  In  the  great  circuit  which  em- 
braces Chicago,  his  District  Attorney,  Bethen,  and  Judge 
Kenesaw  Mountain  Landis  are  Rooseveltian.  There  is  no 
accident  in  these  appointments." 


163 

Your  Honors,  this,  at  least,  is  very  interesting  if 
true.  Is  it  possible  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  appointed 
Kenesaw  Mountain  Landis,  a  professional  politi- 
cian and  devoted  Roosevelt  retainer,  judge  in  that 
circuit  for  the  express  purpose  of  slaughtering  the 
Standard  Oil  Company?  Judge  Landis's  rulings 
were  the  astonishment  of  the  judicial  world,  in  that 
great  case  against  the  Standard  Oil  Company; 
and  his  sending  for  all  the  books  of  the 
company  and  finding  out  how  much  money 
it  had  and  fixing  the  size  of  the  fine  ac- 
cordingly "staggered  humanity7'  —  that  is, 
judicial  humanity.  Was  it  that  Mr.  Roosevelt 
might  have  an  obedient  servant  on  the  United 
States  bench,  up  against  whom,  by  preconcert,  the 
poor  old  Standard  Oil  Company  could  be  pushed  to 
its  certain  condemnation  and  spoliation,  that  Mr. 
Landis  was  elevated  from  the  ward  politician  to  the 
Federal  judiciary?  These  be  questions  which 
surely  give  us  pause.  And  then,  when  you  think 
of  it,  it  seems  a  considerably  more  than  barely 
possible  that  this  is1  true.  The  case  against  the 
Standard  Oil  was  not  a  rebate  case.  There  had 
been  no  violation  of  anti-rebate  legislation,  and  no 
such  violation  was  charged.  The  question  was 
merely  as  to  the  legality  of  a  freight-rate.  Judge 
Landis,  as1  if  bent  on  carrying  out  a  conspiracy  to 
find  the  company  guilty  in  any  event,  to  increase 
Mr.  Roosevelt's  popularity  with  the  mob,  would 
admit  no  proof  that  the  six-cent  rate  had  been  filed 
by  the  Chicago  &  Eastern  Illinois,  and  was  there- 
fore a  "legal  rate";  that  linseed  oil,  for  instance, 
was  carried  at  eight  cents,  and  other  bulky  com- 
modities1 as  low  as  live  cents;  but,  on  the  contrary, 
insisted  that  eighteen  cents  was  the  only  legal  rate 
for  oil,  when  no  one  had  ever  paid  it,  and  when  it 


164 

was  authoritatively  sworn  that  it  did  not  apply  to 
oil.  Moreover,  Judge  Landis  refused  to  consider 
the  fact  that  the  rate  on  oil  between  Chicago  and 
East  St.  Louis  had  been  six  cents  per  hundred 
pounds  for  fourteen  years,  or  from  1891  to  1905, 
which  was  an  open  published  rate  known  to  every 
one  concerned  in  the  shipment  of  oil  and  generally 
known  in  all  railroad  circles  in  Chicago.  Both 
Chicago  and  East  St.  Louis  being  in  Illinois,  the 
railroad  company  was  under  no  legal  obligation  to 
file  this  rate  with  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commis- 
sion at  Washington ;  but  Whiting,  being  in  Indiana, 
shipments  from  Whiting  to  East  St.  Louis  were, 
technically,  interstate,  and  the  Alton  Railroad  filed 
with  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  an  "ap- 
plication sheet"  applying  to  Whiting  the  Chicago 
rate,  and  in  doing  so  thought  the  filing  of  the  appli- 
cation sheet  all  that  was  required  by  law.  All 
these  little  towns  about  Chicago  have,  for  thirty 
years,  been  given  the  same  rate  as  Chicago;  and 
Whiting  was  practically  a  Chicago  suburb.  Fur- 
thermore, the  Standard  Oil  Company  was  advised 
by  the  Kate  Clerk  of  the  Chicago  &  Alton  that  the 
six-cent  rate,  held  criminal  as  against  the  Standard 
Oil,  had  been  legalized  by  filing  with  the  Interstate 
Commerce  Commission.  Still  further,  besides  the 
Chicago  &  Alton,  there  were  two  other  railroads 
over  which  the  Standard  Oil  was  shipping  oil  at  the 
six-cent  rate,  legalized  by  regular  filing  with  the 
Interstate  Commerce  Commission,  one  of  these  rail- 
roads being  the  Chicago  &  Eastern  Illinois  and  the 
other  the  Burlington ;  therefore  the  defendant  com- 
pany had  no  reason,  for  its  own  gain  or  for  over- 
reaching competitors,  for  sending  oil  at  all  by  the 
Alton  route.  All  these  facts  were  known  to  Judge 
Landis,  yet  he  went  forward  and  "soaked"  the 


165 

Standard  Oil  in  a  fine  of  $29,240,000 !  This  looks 
very  much  as  if  the  conviction  of  the  Standard  Oil 
Company  was  foreordained,  to  help  Mr.  Koosevelt 
"make  good"  to  the  rabble;  and  as  if  Judge  Landis 
had  been  appointed  to  the  bench  to  do  just  that  job. 
Other  things  still  make  it  look  very  dark  for  the 
President,  and  seem  to  establish  the  fact  of  a  con- 
spiracy to  destroy  the  Standard  Oil,  irrespective  of 
the  merits  of  the  case.  The  principal  of  these  facts 
are  connected  with  the  opportune  publication  by 
Commissioner  Smith  of  the  Bureau  of  Corporations 
of  his  reports  as  to  Pipe  Lines  and  Petroleum 
Prices  and  Profits,  the  latter  of  which,  as  if  to  fire 
the  public  fury  at  the  exorbitant  profits  alleged  to 
be  earned  by  the  Company,  and  to  justify  the  enor- 
mous fine  imposed  by  Judge  Landis,  was  timed  to 
appear  and  did  appear  only  two  days  after  the  pub- 
lication of  the  Landis  fine. 

Your  Honors,  this  is  a  very  serious  business,  in- 
deed. When  you  take  into  consideration  the  pre- 
vious destruction  of  the  freedom  of  the  press  by  the 
White  House  Cuckoo  Kegime;  the  strangling  of 
freedom  of  speech  in  Congress,  also  by  White  House 
pressure;  this  later  public  pillorying  and  prosecu- 
tion as  an  object  lesson,  before  a  Koosevelt  ap- 
pointee who  scorned  every  proof  of  innocence  of- 
fered, of  the  greatest  corporation  in  this  country; 
the  subsequent  further  pursuit  of  this  same  cor- 
poration, bombarded  by  destructive  Federal  reports 
opportunely  published,  into  the  Circuit  Court  for 
the  Southern  District  of  New  York,  whose  action 
will  be  reviewable  by  a  Federal  Circuit  Court  of 
Appeals,  two-thirds  of  the  Judges  in  which  are 
Roosevelt  appointees — when  all  these  things  in 
close  sequence  are  taken  into  consideration,  it  cer- 
tainly looks  as  if  our  judicial  dice  were  loaded  and 


IfWJ 

that  no  one  but  the  loyal  vassals  of  Mr.  Roosevelt 
iieed  apply  for  justice  in  any  court  controlled  by 
him ;  and  as  if  there  were  a.  well-digested  conspiracy 
at  work  to  Roosevelt-revolutionize  the  whole  coun- 
try to  satisfy  Mr.  Roosevelt's  ulterior  purposes. 
And  what  can  these  purposes1  be,  your  Honors? 
We  are  sure,  your  Honors,  that  the  people  of  this 
country  can  be  depended  upon  to  right  their  boat 
after  the  gale.  Conservative  wealth,  in  which  all 
share,  must  at  last  out-wind  Roosevelt  Populism. 
For  Mr.  Roosevelt  is  a  populist  in  all  his  ways — a 
boss  populist,  not  an  ordinary,  rank-and-file,  foul- 
bearded  populist.  If  you  don't  think  so,  just  listen 
to  the  Kansas  populists,  now  calling  themselves 
"Republicans,"  as  they  rattle  the  roof  with  their 
hand-clappings  at  Mr.  Roosevelt's  prowess  against 
property.  It  is  really  very  remindful  of 
these  very  Populists  and  their  antics  in 
1896.  But  the  good  sense  of  the  people 
will  at  last  down  Populism  now  as  it  did 
in  1896.  In  the  meantime,  however,  who  shall  say 
wiiat  bees  of  ambition  may  not  be  buzzing  in  Mr. 
Roosevelt's1  bonnet.  All  these  populists  want  Mr. 
Roosevelt  for  a  third  term.  It  is  true  he  waves 
back  the  crown,  and  says  he  will  have  none  of  it; 
but,  protesting,  he  doth  protest  too  much.  Thrice 
did  Ca?sar,  protesting,  wave  back  the  crown.  Is  it 
not  rational,  your  Honors,  to  suppose  that  a  man 
who  has  had  a  head  long  enough  to  muzzle  Con- 
gress, muzzle  the  press,  and  muzzle  or  "pack"  the 
judiciary,  carrying  it  even  so  far  as  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States,  according  to  Mr.  Ailing 
—is  it  not  rational  to  suppose  that  this1  was  for 
some  far-reaching  purpose  in  which  there  was 
"something  in  it"  for  Mr.  Roosevelt?  It  seems  to 
us,  your  Honors,  that  to  suppose  anything  else 


167 

would  be  to  suppose  Mr.  Roosevelt  an  idiot.     And 
who  supposes  that,  your  Honors? 

But  let  us  go  back  to  Mr.  Ailing  and  his  remarks 
as  to  the  reconstitutiou  of  our  Federal  Courts  for 
Mr.  Roosevelt's  "policies" : 

"There  is  no  accident  in  these  appointments.  Presi- 
dent Roosevelt  does  not  conceal  that  his  object  is  to  bring 
about  such  a  judicial  and  final  construction  of  the  Federal 
Constitution  as  will  give  the  United  States  power  to  regu- 
late, control,  and  restrain  all  the  business  wealth  of  this 
country,  and  clearly  he  expects  to  succeed  by  the  educa- 
tional process  of  appointments." 

Your  Honors,  this  is  appalling,  if  true;  for  our 
liberties  would  be  in  danger.  It  is  also  appalling 
to  think  how  popular  clamor  could  possibly  land 
in  the  White  House  a  man  of  such  low  morality. 
Packing  primaries  is  nowhere  in  wickedness  com- 
pared with  packing  our  courts  for  the  reduction  of 
the  country's  wealth  to  pay  perpetual  blackmail 
to  the  President.  For  that  is  all  it  would  amount 
to.  If  all  this  is  true,  then,  surely,  the  judicial 
mood  is  not  a  jewel  found  in  Mr.  Roosevelt's  casket. 
I  f  true,  this  proves  many  times  over  what  we  have 
said  about  Mr.  Roosevelt  being  a  mere  politician; 
and,  we  are  sorry  to  say,  not  a  politician  of  very 
elevated  instincts,  either.  To  pack  the  judiciary 
as  you  would  pack  a  primary!  To  appoint  to  the 
bench  men  to  decide  hard  and  fast  always  in  one 
direction,  facts  and  law  be  hanged !  Standard-Oil- 
(""ompanyize  all  judicial  decisions'!  Why,  your 
Honors,  where,  for  Lord's  sake,  in  all  this  mucky 
muddle  are  we  at! 

Is  it  possible  that  this  reduction  of  all  our  wealth 
to  tribute-paying  to  the  President  is  only  a  prepa- 
ration of  the  ground  in  which  shall  flourish  the 
royal  line  of  Roosevelt,  with  its  fingers  in  the  pock- 
ets of  all  the  railroads  and  big  corporations  for- 


108 

ever?  Why,  Croker,  and  his  Democratic  Club,  with 
his  20%  rake-off  on  $70,000,000  of  officeholders' 
salaries  a  year,  would  not  be  a  circumstance  for 
business  sagacity.  But  isn't  it  reasonable?  Other- 
wise, what  is  all  this  muzzling  of  press  and  Con- 
gress and  judiciary  for?  They  are  certainly 
Croker  strategics. 

But  Mr.  Ailing  continues : 

"The  secret  of  Mr.  Eoosevelt's  character  is  a  tre- 
mendous love  of  personal  power.  He  is  the  most  ar- 
bitrary, the  most  arrogant  man  in  the  Unites  States." 

Oh,  your  Honors,  gladly  would  we  defend  our 
President  against  this  terrible  arraignment!  But 
the  shades  of  the  venerable  Tyner,  the  brooding 
cruelty  of  Brownsville,  the  wanton  wounds  of  a 
Long,  the  bruised  and  battered  character  of  a  Nich- 
olls,  and  the  dumb  suffering  of  the  poor  civil-service 
coachman,  chill  us  that  the  tongue  of  our  protest 
against  such  hard  words  doth  cleave  coldly  to  the 
roof  of  our  mouth. 

But  Mr,  Ailing  still  plies  the  birch : 

"He  thinks  he  can  manage  all  business  better  than  its 
owners  can.  Jack  Cade,  500  years  ago,  promised  the  same. 
Even  hell  is  paved  with  good  promises  and  intentions.." 

Your  Honors,  the  man  who  would  pave  hell  when 
he  could  pave  his  own  pockets  is  not  in  the  Croker 
class,  after  all. 

"Three  bilions  of  dollars  is  an  awful  price  to  pay  as  a 
first  instalment  to  get  rid  of  Theodore  Roosevelt  and  'My 
Policy.'  It  will  take  a  long  time  to  clear  this  matter  up. 
But  in  the  end  we  shall  go  back  to  the  doctrines  of  our 
fathers  that  that  government  governs  best  which  governs 
the  least.  *  *  * 

"Nobody  can  question  the  enormous  effect  of  the  uni- 
versal impairment  and  injury  to  our  credit,  bringing  on 
the  recent  panic,  or  question  the  direct  and  cogent  work 
of  President  Eoosevelt  in  bringing  on  the  general  impair- 
ment of  credit. 


169 

"There  has  been  no  financial  scandal  attaching  to  any  of 
the  'wicked  malefactors'  about  whose  heads  President 
Roosevelt  has  been  brandishing  his  big  stick.  There  have 
been  only  three  large  public  scandals.  The  Consolidated 
Gas  of  New  York,  the  life  insurance  companies  and  the 
traction  system  in  New  York. 

"In  neither  of  these  has  President  Roosevelt  taken  any 
part  nor  could  he.  Consolidated  Gas  has  come  out  tri- 
umphant in  the  report  of  the  master  appointed  by  the 
court  to  ascertain  the  facts.  I  have  no  doubt  of  the  re- 
sult of  the  pending  trial,  except  that  as  I  notice  a  new 
Rooseveltian  Judge  is  to  decide  the  case. 

"It  is  about  three  years  ago  in  a  stirring  speech  at 
Raleigh,  N.  C.,  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  startled  all  thinking 
people  by  the  proposition  that  the  United  States  should 
regulate,  control,  and  restrain  the  large  business  wealth 
engaged  in  interstate  business.  He  has  strenuously  prod- 
ded the  public,  prodded  Congress,  prodded  the  judiciary 
up  to  this  date,  and  it  is  the  panic  alone  which  has 
served  to  give  us  a  rest. 

"In  my  judgment  it  has  been  'my  policy'  which  has 
been  the  principal  and  direct  cause  in  bringing  on  the 
panic."  NEW  YORK  SUN,  Nov.  1,  1907. 

Your  Honors,  we  are  morally  certain  that  the 
woods'  are  full  of  such  birds  as  Mr.  Ailing,  only 
their  voices  are  not  heard.  The  circling  Koosevelt 
hawk  overhead,  with  his  press-agency  and  Federal 
and  Presidential  thumb-screws,  gives  the  whole 
chorus  the  hush. 

Now,  your  Honors,  all  this  talk  about  Mr.  Koose- 
velt  would  be  of  no  relevancy  in  this  argument,  ex- 
cept for  his  close  association  with  these  wily  plain- 
tiffs in  their  nefarious  schemes  against  our  client, 
American  Production.  It  is  proven  by  abundant 
evidence,  which  we  shall  hereafter  most  clearly  set 
forth,  that  Mr.  Roosevelt,  in  spite  of  all  his  brave 
utterances  in  behalf  of  American  labor,  is  and  has 
been  exchanging  for  various  sorts  of  quid  pro  quo 
this  sacred  domestic  market  of  ours,  the  life-blood 
of  our  whole  people,  its  civilization  and  hope  of 
heaven ;  and  that  in  so  doing  he  is  obeying  the  beck 
of  these  wily  plaintiffs. 


170 


XVIII 

THE  WILY  PLAINTIFF,  THE  IMPORTING  TRUST, 
STEADILY  MISREPRESENTS  THE  TARIFF-DIKE  AND 
CALLS  IT  THE  OFFSPRING  OF  "CLASS  LEGISLA- 
TION." 

Your  Honors,  this  way  of  attacking  our  tariff- 
dike  is  one  of  the  oldest  known  to  the  wily  plain- 
tiff, the  Importing  Trust.  In  your  presence  this 
morning,  counsel  for  the  Importing  Trust  made 
these  walls  ring  'round  and  'round  again  with  de- 
nunciations of  Congress  for  "lending  itself  to 
small  party  politics  and  permitting  the  manufact- 
urers of  this  country  to  victimize  the  'consumer.' ' 
We  have  already  shown  you,  your  Honors,  that 
there  is  no  distinct  class  of  "consumers"  in  this 
country,  and  that  if  any  "consumer"  is  paying  a 
protected  price  for  what  he  buys,  he  certainly  is 
obtaining  a  protected  price,  a  price  twice  as  high 
as  is  paid  by  any  other  people  in  the  world,  on 
what  he  sells,  namely,  his  wage-production.  We 
have  only  time  to  offer  one  or  two  examples  of 
this  form  of  tariff-dike  attack  as  they  appear  in 
the  newspapers  of  the  Importing  Trust  from  day 
to  day.  Here  is  one: 

' '  As  Cromwell  said  that  peaee  without  a  worm  in  it 
was  impossible  without  righteousness,  so  prosperity  can- 
not be  without  a  taint  unless  it  is  founded  on  fair  deal- 
ing and  a  justice  as  exact  as  human  beings  can  make  it. 
There  is  also  such  a  thing  as  law-made  prosperity.  This 
can  but  rankle  in  the  hearts  of  citizens.  How  can  a 
prosperity  be  untainted  which  depends,  for  example,  upon 
a  needless  tariff  on  steel  rails  or  beams,  put  on  and  kept 
on  only  to  swell  fortunes  already  great?  Here  we  see  the 
political  absurdity  and  moral  contradiction  of  those  who 
have  admitted  the  gross  injustice  of  the  high  tariff" — 


171 

It  is  the  Importing  Trust,  your  Honors,  who 
has  "admitted  the  gross  injustice  of  the  high 
tariff,"  and  no  one  else — 

— "but  have  said  it  must  not  be  touched  because  to 
do  so  would  imperil  prosperity.  But  it  is  those  high 
duties  themselves  which  imperil  prosperity" — 

The  prosperity  of  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Import- 
ing Trust,  your  Honors — 

— "since  they  make  the  people  distrustful  and  dis- 
contented." 

"The  people"  are  the  members  of  the  Importing 
Trust,  your  Honors.  They  are  "distrustful  and 
discontented"  because  the  tariff-dike  hinders  their 
monopoly  of  our  market  here  and  gives  the  Ameri- 
can wage-producer  somewhat  of  a  chance  with  the 
wage-producer  abroad  to  draw  wages  from  our  pro- 
ducing fund.  But  this  Tmporting-Trust  writer 
keeps  on  with  his  lingo: 

"Protectionist  avarice  is  indeed  a  taint  upon  prosperity 
which  long  ago  should  have  been  removed. 

"A  stand-pat  Administration  confessing  that  its  fondly 
loved  prosperity  is  stuffed  with  sawdust,  is  truly  a  moral 
spectacle.  If  Prosperity  itself  now  has  to  be  written 
down  Tainted,  all  the  equivocations  and  vacillations  about 
the  tariff,  during  the  last  six  years,  are  verily  nothing  but 
vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit." 

In  reading  such  things  as  this,  your  Honors,  so 
full  of  falsehood,  direct  or  indirect,  so  careless  of 
the  prosperity  upon  which  hang  the  lives  of  mil- 
lions of  our  people;  nay,  so  anxious  to  belittle  that 
prosperity,  and  make  it  seem  to  the  wage-producer 
a  burden  instead  of  a  blessing,  all  for  the  purpose 
of  profiting  by  our  misery,  we  come  almost  to  favor 
the  old  belief  in  demons,  rather  than  the  idea  that 
such  cruel  tricks  are  only  the  pestilent  vapor  from 
unhappy  brain-cells.  And  yet,  after  all,  your 


172 

Honors,  there  is  consolation  in  the  thought  that 
they  who  do  these  wicked  things  are  impelled 
thereto  by  their  heritage  of  badly  balanced  brain- 
cells  from  the  long  past  ages  of  savagery,  and  not 
from  absolute  will  in  this  day  and  generation  and 
in  our  present  environment. 

Here  is  one  more  sample  of  this  style  of  attack 
upon  the  tariff -dike: 

"Calhoun,  if  we  remember,  maintained  that  occa- 
sional periods  of  commercial  depression  and  even  panic 
•were  good  for  the  country." 

How  the  Importing  Trust,  your  Honors,  breathes 
its  prayer  against  the  tariff-dike  in  every  word  of 
this  ebullition!  It  even  preaches  the  healthfulness 
of  panics;  yes,  your  Honors,  such  panics  as  always 
follow  the  breaking  of  the  dike  and  the  swamping 
of  our  industries  in  the  deluge  of  foreign  surplus 
products  which  overwhelms1  us!  Was  ever  greater 
coldbloodedness  than  this  shown  by  any  other  New 
York  bunco-steerer !  The  Importing  Trust,  the  foul 
bird  of  prey,  who  pecks  our  eyes  out  one  by  one 
every  now  and  then,  preaching  panic  as  a  cure  for 
sin — American  panic  which  is  the  harvest  home  of 
the  Importing  Trust!  A  highway  robber,  your 
Honors1,  preaching  to  the  victim  whom  he  has 
robbed  of  all  clothing  the  gospel  of  poverty  and 
obedience  and  lauding  the  good  effect  of  nakedness 
in  hardening  one's  skin  to  the  winter's  blast !  Can 
we  believe  our  eyes  and  ears,  your  Honors,  when 
we  see  and  hear  such  words  from  the  monster  who 
is  to  profit  by  our  undoing!  It  wants  our  purses, 
our  watches,  and  our  clothing,  your  Honors,  and 
solemnly  sermonizes  us  on  the  holy  chastening 
effect  of  hunger  and  nakedness1!  Was  there  ever 
such  scientific  knavery  as  this  in  all  the  world ! 
But  the  Importing  Trust  preaches  on  : 


173 

"They  [panics]  enabled  us,  he  said,  to  take  our  bear- 
ings, politically;  to  see  through  false  theories  of  gov- 
ernment. ' ' 

Tariff -dikes,  your  Honors,  were  the  "false  theories 
of  government" — tariff -dikes  which  gave  discomfort 
to  the  Importing  Trust : 

"To  expose  charlatanism  and  return  to  sounder 
methods" — 

the  sounder  methods,  your  Honors,  which  exposed 
our  naked  high-cost  market  to  capture  by  the  Im- 
porting Trust. 

"In  the  moderate  check  to  business  which  we  have 
already  experienced,  some  political  good  has  been 
wrought.  Belief  in  a  magical  tariff  has  been  partly 
broken" — 

by  the  German  Agreement,  your  Honors,  by  which 
an  Importing-Trust  Administration  gave  Germany 
the  power  to  fix  its  own  tariffs  on  goods  entering 
our  ports. 

"People  have  had  glimpses  of  laws  of  trade  and  forces 
of  nature  too  powerful  for  any  politician  or  legislative 
contrivance.  And  they  are  prepared  to  go  back  more 
easily  to  the  conception  of  government  as  something  that 
should  meddle  with  business  as  little  as  possible,  and 
then  only  for  reason  shown." 

"The  people"  referred  to  in  this  extract,  your 
Honors,  we  repeat,  are  the  members  of  the  Import- 
ing Trust,  whose  business  is  the  destruction  of  our 
client,  American  Production.  It  is  they  who  have 
had  "glimpses  of  laws  of  trade  and  forces  of  nature 
too  powerful  for  any  political  or  legislative  contriv- 
ance." "The  laws  of  trade"  were  the  trickery  and 
chicanery  of  German  diplomacy  by  which  the  Ger- 
man Agreement  was  forced  on  our  people.  These 
tli  ings  were  too  powerful  for  the  "legislative  con- 


174 

trivance"  known  as  the  American  Constitution.  It 
is  these  people  who  "are  prepared  to  go  back  more 
easily  to  the  conception  of  government  as  some- 
thing which  should  meddle  as  little  as  possible" 
with  their  business,  which  is  taking  brokerages  and 
commis'sions  from  the  deluge  of  foreign  surplus 
products  rolling  over  our  dike  through  the  grievous 
rent  made  by  the  German  Agreement.  Yes,  your 
Honors,  these  people  are  always  ready  to  recognize 
such  "laws"  and  such  "natural  forces"  and  to  have 
such  "conceptions  of  government." 

We  have  given  these  extracts,  your  Honors,  as 
mere  samples  of  those  now  swarming  in  Importing- 
Trust  newspapers  all  over  this  great  country,  the 
sx>le  purpose  of  which  is  to  discount  the  tariff-dike 
as  our  great  bulwark  against  an  industrial  cata- 
clysm here ;  and  we  warn  you  of  the  fact  that  these 
makers  of  public  opinion  are  one  and  all  paid  by 
the  Importing  Trust  to  destroy  American  Produc- 
tion, that  our  arch  enemy  may  rob  our  people  of 
their  savings. 

The  Importing  Trust,  the  wily  plaintiff  herein, 
doals  in  no  ordinary  trickery  in  deluding  the  Ameri- 
can people  to  their  own  undoing ;  but  disguises  its 
purpose  in  many  ways.  One  of  these  ways  is  to 
control  some  newspaper  ostensibly  a  believer  in 
tariff-dikes  and  a  supporter  of  the  party  which  has 
usually  held  to  the  dike-building  policy;  and  from 
such  a  newspaper,  as  from  a  masked  battery,  to  dis- 
charge its  broadsides  against  the  forts  of  American 
Production.  Through  such  newspapers  as  these 
it  never  "roots"  for  vulgar  and  barefaced  Free 
Trade.  It  rather  professes  to  like  the  idea  of  dik- 
ing out  the  flood  of  foreign  products;  and  yet  it 
regrets  "the  inequities"  and  "burdens"  of  a  tariff- 
rliko  "too  high":  nnrl  hints  that  perhaps  somebody 


175 

is  getting  "an  unfair  advantage"  from  so  much  pro- 
tection, and  suggests  that  the  dike  might  better  be 
''revised"  for  the  purpose  of  correcting  "abuses" 
and  giving  the  "consumer"  a  better  chance.  This 
is  the  sapping  and  mining  trick  of  the  wily  plain- 
tiff, the  Importing  Trust,  which  it  employs  be- 
cause, in  these  times,  the  connection  between  the 
Dingley  Dike  and  American  prosperity  is  so  plain 
that  to  assault  it  openly  would  put  the  people  on 
their  guard.  Here  is  a  sample  of  the  sapping  and 
mining  method  of  destroying  the  dike  displayed  in 
a  Republican  newspaper : 

' '  '  The  tariff  will  not  be  touched  during  the  coming  ses- 
sion of  Congress,  and  when  it  is  touched  it  will  be  after 
a  declaration  in  the  next  Republican  convention  and  after 
the  next  inauguration.'  SENATOR  WABREN  OF  WYO- 
MING. 'Touched*  implies  the  least  possible  revision  from 
the  Senators  point  of  view.  Meanwhile,  are  the  people 
being  'touched'  by  the  stand-pat  interests?" 

Your  Honors,  this  is  perhaps  the  most  perfidious 
thing  of  the  kind  in  American  journalism.  This 
newspaper  knows  that  there  are  no  distinct  "stand- 
pat  interests'"  in  this  country.  The  whole  "stand- 
pat"  interest  is  the  whole  of  American  Production, 
and  from  American  Production  every  wage-pro- 
ducer, every  property-producer,  and  every  adjunct- 
producer  in  this  country  draws  his  life-blood.  This 
paper  knows  as  well  as  it  knows  its  own  name  that 
to  sweep  away  and  keep  swept  away  our  tariff-dike 

would  be  to  sweep  away  and  keep  swept  away  the 
nation,  which  is  only  a  group  of  immigrants  ready 
to  leave  this  country  on  the  same  provocation 
which  caused  them  to  leave  their  former  habitat. 
It  knows  that,  with  the  dike  down  to  stay,  from  this 
country  at  cost-100,  every  manufacturing  dollar 
would  gravitate  in  a  decade  out  into  the  rest  of  the 
world  and  its  cost-20.  And  yet  it  is  one  of  the  hire- 


176 

lings,  or,  rather,  the  personal  chattels,  of  the  Im- 
porting Trust,  and  its  business  is  to  feign  Kepub- 
lican  principles  while  undermining  the  tariff-dike. 
It  knows  that  the  general  breaking  up  of  the  dike 
would  be  followed  by  the  starvation  to  death  of  our 
wage-producers,  the  bankruptcy  of  our  property- 
producers,  and  the  paralysis  of  all  our  adjunct- 
producers,  and  that  the  land  would  be  overrun  with 
insurrection  and  bread-rioting,  to  the  destruction 
of  millions,  aye,  billions,  of  dollars  worth  of  prop- 
erty belonging  to  innocent  business  men  and  thou- 
sands and  thousands  of  lives;  and  it  knows  that 
the  American  people  no  sooner  would  have  realized 
what  they  had  done,  than  they  would  turn  every 
stone  to  build  anew  the  tariff-dike.  But  this  creat- 
ure and  chattel  of  the  Importing  Trust  also  knows 
that  it  takes  several  years  to  repair  a  tariff-dike; 
because,  before  they  can  hope  for  laws  repairing 
the  dike,  the  people  have  to  await  the  expiration 
of  presidential  and  congressional  terms  of  office  and 
the  exorcising  of  the  devils  of  the  Importing  Trust 
from  the  sick  body  politic  of  the  country.  It 
knows,  that  for  several  years  the  Importing  Trust 
would  be  the  King  of  American  Trade,  and,  monop- 
olizing our  entire  domestic  market,  would  absorb 
the  whole  savings-bank  fund  of  our  people,  which 
being  accomplished,  the  Importing  Trust  would  be 
ready  itself  to  assist  in  the  building  of  the  dike 
anew,  in  order  that  American  savings  might  be 
dammed  up  behind  it  once  more,  and  one  day  be 
worth  snatching  again  by  the  Importing  Trust 
after  the  same  sort  of  a  campaign  against  the 
"trusts"  which  it  is  now  carrying  on  for  "revision." 
Your  Honors,  to  refer  again  to  what  counsel  has 
said  about  tariff-dikes  being  "class  legislation,"  no 
such  thing  as  "class  legislation"  is  ever  enacted  by 


177 

Congress.  Every  law  must  be  universal  in  its  ap- 
plication. It  can  mark  out  no  classes.  There  can 
be  no  "favoritism,"  no  laws  which  "rob  the  many 
for  the  enrichment  of  the  few."  This  tariff-dike 
protects  all  alike,  for  it  is  that  which  prevents  this 
country,  as  an  industrial  proposition,  from  being 
wiped  from  the  face  of  the  earth  by  a  raving  deluge 
of  cost-20  products.  The  wily  plaintiff,  the  Im- 
porting Trust,  knows  this  better  than  any  other  one 
else  on  earth.  Why,  your  Honors,  the  Importing 
Trust  stands  by  us  centuries  long,  for  even  the 
slightest  opportunity  to  pocket  the  difference  be- 
tween foreign  cost-20  and  our  domestic  cost-100; 
for,  against  every  rule  of  wise  statecraft,  ay! 
against  the  simplest  common  sense,  this  arch- 
marauder  of  the  centuries  has  always  been  allowed 
by  our  people  to  play  blood-sucker  to  our  industrial 
arteries,  and  is  even  now  permitted  to  rush 
across  our  dike  nearly  two  billions  of 
dollars'  worth  of  goods  a  year,  every  dol- 
lar's worth  of  which  should  be  made  by 
our  wage-producers,  to  the  raising  of  wages,  the 
wider  distribution  of  our  wealth,  and  the  refine- 
ment of  our  morals  and  civilization.  And  yet, 
knowing  all  these  things,  these  wily  plaintiffs  often 
join  in  spreading  the  belief  that  the  tariff-dike  pro- 
tects "special  interests,"  who  secure  in  Washing- 
ton in  their  own  private  behalfs  legislation  in  its 
benefits  to  them  exactly  proportioned  to  the  size  of 
the  lobby  for  which  they  pay.  We  might  inquire, 
your  Honors,  how  large  is  that  lobby  which  at 
Washington  represents  these  wily  plaintiffs  and 
their  attempt  to  destroy  American  Production  for 
their  own  special  profit.  Our  savings  bank  account 
now  is  nearly  four  billions  of  dollars;  and  our 
annual  domestic  transactions  as  shown  by  the 


178 

banks  amount  to  one  hundred  and  seventy  thou- 
sands of  millions  of  dollars.  It  is  this  entire  sav- 
ings account  and  as  many  of  our  domestic  transac- 
tions as  they  can  appropriate  to  themselves 
which  move  these  wily  plaintiffs  to  maintain  their 
own  lobby  at  Washington,  which,  for  unscrupulous- 
uess  and  richness  in  bribes  is  a  Titan  where  other 
lobbies  are  Tom  Thumbs.  Does  not  this  look  rea- 
sonable, your  Honors? 

To  return  the  taunt  as  to  "class  legislation,"  we 
declare  that  these  wily  plaintiffs'  are  demanding 
of  Congress  the  most  abominable  kind  of  "class 
legislation."  For  the  legislation  they  demand  is 
the  "revision"  downwards  of  the  tariff-dike,  which 
would  immediately  divide  the  people  of  this  country 
into  two  classes,  viz.,  those  who  had  money  to 
profit  by  peddling  foreign  goods  in  our  markets 
and  those  who  had  not.  Those  who  had  such 
money  would  be  the  masters  of  those  who  had  not. 
Money  would  be  everything;  flesh  and  blood  noth- 
ing; and  workers  without  money  would  be  so  poor 
that  their  misery  would  sell  them  body  and  soul 
to  the  moneyed  men  for  a  mess  of  pottage.  By 
lowering  the  dike  you  snatch  from  those  without 
money  to  peddle  foreign  goods  the  only  thing  which 
makes  them  independent,  the  value  in  their  labor. 
Truly,  dike  "revision"  is  "class  legislation"  of  the 
wickedest  kind.  Truly,  the  high-tariff  dike  wipes 
out  all  "class"  landmarks  by  making  all  alike  inde- 
pendent in  the  value  of  their  labor.  Labor  is  then 
the  coin  of  exchange,  a  coin  which  all  may  have. 
But  lower  the  tariff-dike,  and  you  dig  a  deep  gulf 
between  those  with  and  those  without  money. 
Labor  is  no  longer  anything;  money  is  everything; 
and  those  without  money  become  the  chattels  of 
those  with  it. 


179 

But  far  ou  the  other  hand,  we  declare  that  tar  iff  - 
dike  legislation  is  non-class  legislation  of  the  high- 
est kind.  It  makes  labor  first  and  money  the  ser- 
vant and  not  the  master  of  the  people ;  and  reduces 
the  whole  country  to  the  common  level  of  workers. 
Moreover,  it  is  merely  common  justice  and  equity ; 
for  it  goes  on  the  principle  that  American  wage- 
producers  should  have  in  their  own  domestic  mar- 
ket at  least  some  chance  with  wage-producers 
abroad,  who  do  not  support  our  government  and  our 
laws  and  are  not  liable  to  serve  in  our  army  or  navy 
for  the  defense  of  the  country. 

As  a  final  reply  to  counsel  for  plaintiffs  under 
this  head,  we  simply  point  to  the  Dingley  Law,  en- 
acted July  24, 1897,  which  is  the  dike  that  for  more 
than  a  decade  now  has  kept  out  a  portion,  and  a 
portion  only,  of  the  foreign  deluge  of  surplus  prod- 
ucts. An  examination  of  this  Law  by  people  who 
believe  in  the  square-jawed  falsehood  of  the  wily 
plaintiff  will  show  that  this  "class  legislation"  em- 
braces provisions  for  every  "class"  of  producers  in 
the  United  States,  except  those  of  kerosene  oil, 
anthracite  coal,  cotton,  undressed  timber  and  per- 
haps a  few  other  things  called  "raw  materials."  * 


*  Since  we  are  now  importing  something  like  $20,000,000  of 
raw  cotton  annually,  the  tariff -dike  needs  to  be  mended  to  shut 
out  foreign  cotton.  It  is  said  that  when  the  Dingley  Dike  was 
under  discussion,  a  committee  representing  our  Southern  cotton- 
growers  appeared  before  the  Ways  and  Means  Committee  of  the 
House  at  Washington  and  made  an  appeal  for  the  protection  of 
cotton;  but  the  appeal  came  to  naught  through  the  appearance 
of  some  New  England  cotton  manufacturers  before  the  same 
committee  who  represented  that  a  tariff  on  raw  cotton  would  be 
against  their  interests.  These  New  England  manufacturers 
were  immediately  afterwards  found  dead  by  the  wayside  and  an 
examination  showed  that  each  had  died  from  a  wasting  disease 
of  the  brain  which  had  eaten  away  as  with  a  cancer  all  the  brain- 
cells  in  the  organ  of  conscience.  Had  this  dread  disease  not  al- 
ready destroyed  their  sense  of  justice,  they  never  would  have 
had  the  courage  to  protest  against  protection  to  others  when 
they  were  themselves  protected. 


ISO 

Therefore,  even  granting  for  argument's1  sake  that 
it  is  "class"  legislation,  it  is  also  national  legisla- 
tion, benefiting  every  producer  and  so  every  con- 
sumer within  our  gates;  because  the  nation  is  but 
a  composite  of  producing  "classes,"  and  when  you 
have  sheltered  each  class  behind  the  tariff -dike,  you 
have  sheltered  the  whole  nation.  We  do  not  forget, 
your  Honors,  that  learned  counsel  for  the  prose- 
cution ponderously  declared  that  those  engaged  in 
industries  which  can  be  at  all  benefited  by  "protec- 
tion" are  so  few  in  number  and  the  burden  of  the 
"tax"  upon  all  the  rest  who  must  remain  unbene- 
fited  is  so  great  that  the  greatest  good  of  the  great- 
est number  requires  the  "revision"  of  the  dike 
downwards  to  a  revenue  level.  But,  as  we  have 
said  before,  those  who  are  sheltered  primarily  by 
the  dike  are,  without  discrimination,  our  wage- 
producers  and  property-producers;  and  the  whole 
country  depends  directly  upon  our  wage-and-prop- 
erty-production. 


XIX. 

THE  WILY  PLAINTIFF,  THE  IMPORTING  TRUST,  IS  EVEN 
ATTEMPTING  TO  COVER  WITH  THE  VEIL  OF 
MYSTERY  THE  RESULTS  OF  ITS  MACHINATIONS 
AGAINST  THE  TARIFF  DIKE,  WHICH  MUST  SOON 
EVENTUATE  IN  PANIC  AND  HARD  TIMES  FOR  OL-K 
PEOPLE. 

Your  Honors,  a  few  moments  ago  we  read  to  you 
the  words  of  various  of  the  mouthpieces  of  the  wily 
plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  the  purpose  of  which 
was  to  mislead  our  people  as  to  the  real  source 
of  the  industrial  and  financial  disaster  which  the 


speakers    scented    in  the    distance.     There    is  no 
doubt,  your  Honors,  that  sad  times  are  just  ahead 
of  us  but  there  is  no  mystery  as  to  their  source. 
There  is  no  doubt,  your  Honors,  but  the  disaster 
will  flow  from  breaches  in  the  tariff-dike  which 
for  a  decade,  in  various  secret  ways,  have  been 
making  by  the  Importing  Trust.     For,  your  Hon- 
ors, this  wily  plaintiff  never  slumbers  or  sleeps, 
when  by  any  subtlety  whatever  there  is  a  possibility 
of  working  a  crevice  in  our  dike  through  which 
more  foreign  goods  can  trickle  into  this  country 
and    more  commissions    and    brokerages    into  its 
strong  box.    It  is  because  there  is  already  a  baby- 
iiumdation  of  our  country  by  foreign  goods  at  cost- 
20  that  there  is  that  anxious  "feeling"  in  our  busi- 
ness centres.     It  is  too  plain  a  case  for  mystery, 
your  Honors.     As  we  believe  we  have  said  before, 
business  is  simply  demand  being  connected  with 
supply;  and  as  long  as  our  whole  domestic  demand 
is  connected  exclusively  with  our  home-made  sup- 
ply, business  must  always  keep  a  volume  at  least 
as  great  as  our  whole  domestic  demand.    Our  de- 
mand expresses    our  wants,    and    our  wants    are 
rather  increasing  than  diminishing;  and  as  long 
as  we  ourselves  have  the  right  to  work  and  provide 
our  own  supply,  and  utter  our  demand  by  finding 
a  market  for  what  we  produce  ourselves,  whether 
wages  or  property,  goods  and  cash  will  pass  back 
and  forth  over  the  counters  of  our  merchants  in 
unbroken  torrents  and  business  will  get  rather  bet- 
ter than  worse.    But  if  there  is  an  escapage  of  our 
domestic  demand  to  foreign  fields  of  supply;  if  the 
opportunity  which  we  give  to  others  to  work  for  us 
be  not  returned  to  us  in  an  opportunity  to  work 
for  others;  if  thus  our  means  of  exchange  is  taken 
away  from  us,  the  demand  across  the  counters  of 


182 

oui'  business  men  will  slacken  in  just  the  degree 
that  our  employment  thus  slackens;  and  then  and 
only  then  shall  we  face  a  "practically  certain  re- 
cession in  trade''  and  realize  that  "we  have  ahead 
of  us  a  period  of  smaller  industrial  totals."  Yes, 
your  Honors,  as  the  power  of  our  people  to  buy 
leaks  away  through  our  demand  placed  in  the 
foreign  cost-20  supply,  the  face  of  our  prosperity 
will  be  averted  and  we  shall  soon  hear  that  "rail- 
ways are  curtailing  expenditures,"  "bankers  are  in- 
clined to  exercise  caution  in  extending  accommoda- 
tions" and  that  "most  manufacturers  and  mer- 
chants are  planning  their  fall  campaigns  with  much 
conservatism,"  and  there  will  be  "little  division  of 
well-informed  opinion"  "that  the  period  ahead  of 
us  is  one  in  which  commercial  activities  will  be 
curtailed  and  manufacturers'  totals  showr  a  de- 
crease." And  the  Importing  Trust  tells  us  that  all 
this  has  happened ;  but  what  a  mystery  it  is  to  this 
wily  plaintiff !  It  is  itself  the  very  cat  which  swal- 
lowed the  canary,  but  just  listen  to  its  plausible 
purr !  There  is  not  a  feather  sticking  to  its  teeth ; 
not  a  suspicion  of  blood  on  its  velvet  coat.  And 
yet  that  canary,  at  this  very  moment,  is  in  the  cat's 
grateful  stomach.  If  the  cat  is  so  reckless  as  to 
get  caught  in  the  act,  or  to  confess*  its  theft,  it  will 
never  get  another  chance  at  the  country's  canaries. 
Hence  its  bland  ignorance  of  the  true  cause  of  the 
"practically  certain  recession  in  trade,"  which  is 
that,  through  the  ceaseless  efforts  of  the  wily  plain- 
tiff, the  Importing  Trust,  backed  by  the  fact  that 
foreign  industrial  growth  and  enterprise  have 
largely  discounted  the  height  of  the  Dingley  Dike, 
the  balance  of  foreign  trade  is  hundreds  of  millions 
against  us  annually,  in  spite  of  the  pretense  that 
it  is  1400,000,000  in  our  favor. 


183 

The  report  that  comes  to  us  from  the  United 
States  Treasury,  your  Honors1,  purporting  to  tell 
us  how  much  we  have  sold  and  bought  abroad,  does 
not  tell  the  whole  foreign-trade  story.  Because  it 
is  in  figures  and  says  nothing  about  quantities,  upon 
which  depends  the  power  of  foreign  products  to 
supplant  American  supply,  that  is,  to  cancel  the 
need  of  the  physical  thing;  a  power  unconnected 
with  the  money  value  of  the  goods.  A  Japanese 
brush,  for  instance,  Japan  being  a  cost-10  country, 
supplants  a  cost-100  brush  made  here,  and  so  can- 
cels a  100-demand;  but  the  Treasury  figures  only 
rover  the  Japanese  brush  at  10,  and  leave  out  of 
account  90  points  of  a  100-point  loss  in  our  do- 
mestic business1.  And  going  thus  through  the  whole 
list  of  imports  the  total  would  be  an  average  world- 
price  of  20  instead  of  our  price  of  100.  In  other 
words,  our  imports  would  have  had  something  like 
five  times  the  American-demand-killing  power  of 
the  figures  given  in  our  list  of  imports.  But  this* 
is  not  the  whole  story  of  the  deception  contained  in 
our  Treasury  report  as  to  our  foreign  trade.  V 
we  export  we  are  at  the  reverse  disadvantage.  Or- 
exports1  are  figured  in  the  list  at  cost-100,  and  their 
displacing  power,  pound  for  pound,  is  but  one-fifth 
of  100  in  a  world  whose  costs  are  at  20.  The  high 
American  price  cuts  too  burly  a  figure  compared 
with  its  effect  in  cancelling  foreign  demand;  and 
our  real  trade  is  but  an  average  of  one-fifth  as  great 
as  the  figures  show.  In  other  words,  when  we  buy 
in  the  world  at  large,  the  average  destruction  of 
American  domestic  demand,  caused  by  paralyzing 
the  American  medium  of  exchange,  otherwise  the 
wage-producer's  opportunity  to  produce  wages,  is 
five  times  as  largo  as  that  shown  by  the  Treasury 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  figure  cut  by 


184 

our  exported'  goods  in  supplying  foreign  demand  is 
only  one-fifth  as  great  as  appears  by  the  Treasury 
figures. 

On  the  basis  of  this  reasoning,  your  Honors,  let 
us  do  a  little  figuring  ourselves : 

American  imports  annually,  $1,500,- 

000,000,  with  displacing  power  in 

quantities  five  times  as  great,  or.  .$7,500,000,000 
American  exports  annually 2,000,000,000 


Loss  to  American  business $5,500,000,000 

Here  is  a  nominal  loss  of  $5,500,000,000,  in  de- 
mands which  should  have  gone  to  American  Pro- 
duction and  should  have  shown  in  the  records  of 
our  property-producers. 

But  this  does  not  tell  the  whole  story  either, 
your     Honors.       A     single     opportunity     offered 
American     Production     is     the     starting     of     a 
whole   procession    of   opportunities    which    other- 
wise would  not  have  come  into  play.     Did  you 
ever  observe,  your  Honors,  howr  a  single  trolley 
car  off  the  track  blocks  a  procession  of  a  hundred 
trolley  cars  on  Broadway?     It  is  something  that 
way  with  an  opportunity  which  has  gotten  off  the 
track  through  a  demand  for  a  given  supply  hav- 
ing gone  off  the  track  into  the  hands  of  the  Im- 
porting Trust.     It  blocks  the  procession.     There- 
fore, when  you  say  that  our  business  is  $5,500,- 
000,000  worse  off  in  a  year  by  the  activity  of  the 
Importing  Trust,  you  have  not  begun  to  put  in 
figures  the  actual  loss  to  the  country. '  Our  annual 
domestic  business,  as  shown  by  our  banks,  as  we 
have  said  before,  covers  something  like  one  hun- 
dred and  seventy  thousand  millions  of  dollars  <of 
exchanges,  while  our  actual  production  of  goods 


185 

in  the  same  time  is  but  a  fraction  as  large.  This 
shows  that  production  is  the  good  old  hen  of  oppor- 
tunity which  lays  a  nest  full  of  eggs  and  hatches 
chickens  enough  in  a  short  time  to  make  a  whole 
regiment  of  hens. 

There  is  no  doubt,  your  Honors,  that  this  reason- 
ing comes  pretty  close  to  the  real  truth  as  to  why 
"we  are  facing  a  practically  certain  recession  in 
trade;"  why  "bankers  are  inclined  to  exercise 
caution  in  extending  accomodations ;"  and  why 
"most  manufacturers  and  merchants  are  planning 
their  fall  campaigns  with  much  conservatism." 
If  our  figures1  are  only  half  true — and  we  believe 
they  are  wholly  true — what  a  terrible  destruction, 
your  Honors,  through  our  upward-bounding  for- 
eign imports,  is  going  on  among  our  sources  of 
wealth.  Think  of  it,  your  Honors!  What  a  wan- 
ton thing  is  this  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing 
Trust!  To  land  a  single  dollar's1  worth  of  goods 
in  this  country,  it  kills  a  corresponding  domestic 
demand  equal  to  $5!  We  repeat  it,  your  Honors, 
supply  is  the  measure  of  demand;  for  to  offer  a 
supply  is  to  demand  its'  equivalent  in  exchange. 
Kill  the  cause  for  an  American  supply  by  a  dollar's 
worth  of  foreign  goods,  and  you  have  killed  f 5  of 
American  supply,  that  is,  $5  of  American  demand, 
which  is  $5  of  American  business.  This  killing 
of  American  business  at  the  rate  of  $5  of  domestic 
business  for  every  fl  of  foreign  imports  is  going 
on  at  a  reckless  and  ever-increasing  rate;  and  this 
alone,  were  there  in  fact  a  trade  balance  such  as 
the  Treasury  reports1  show,  would  be  enough  to 
do  all  the  things  in  the  direction  of  a  "practically 
certain  recession  in  trade"  which  our  Importing- 
Trust  orator  says  are  happening  in  such  a  mysteri- 
ous wav. 


186 

But  the  Treasury  reports  do  not  tell  the  whole 
story.  They  merely  give  arbitrary  balances  shown 
by  the  exchange  of  the  goods,  and  do  not  touch 
matters  incidental  to  foreign  trade,  which  wipe 
out  the  credit  balance  and  leave  a  heavy  debit 
balance  instead.  Let  us1  figure  a  little,  your 
Honors,  and  see  if  we  cannot  bring  some  honest 
common  sense  into  the  method  of  keeping  the 
country's  accounts  relating  to  foreign  trade: 

Favorable  balance  of  trade  as  shown  by 
the  Treasury  figures $400,000,000 

Freights  paid  by  American  to  foreign 
ships $300,000.000 

Expenses  of  American  tourists  abroad,  100,000,000 

Immigrants'  remittances  to  old  folks 
at  home 100,000,000* 

Interests  and  dividends  on  American 
securities 200,000,000 

Undervaluations  of  imports '  100,000,000 

Smuggled  goods 100,000,000  900,000,00 

Actual  balance  of  trade  against  the 
United  States $500,000,000 

Your  Honors,  we  verily  believe  that,  without 
reference  to  the  incalculable  injury  wrought  from 
the  cancellation  by  every  unit  of  import  of  five 
units  of  the  American  demand  upon  our  business 
won,  the  actual  cash  balance  of  trade  against  us 
is  upwards  of  f  500,000,000  a  year  at  this  moment ; 
and  to  this  for  the  future  must  be  added  $100,000,- 
000  more  at  least  because  of  the  increased  under - 
valuations  permitted  by  the  German  Agreement, 
and  from  150,000,000  to  $100,000,000  still  more, 
because  of  the  premium  upon  smuggling  lately 
offered  by  our  German  Administration  through 
a.  Treasury  order  which  makes  perjury  on  the  part 


*'To  this  should  be  added  the  money  taken  out  of  the  country 
every  fall  by  the  eastward  migration  of  Italian,  Hungarian  and 
other  workers,  who  spend  the  winter  in  the  old  country. 


187 

of  the  traveler  the  only  thing  between  him  and 
the  profits  of  a  trunk  full  of  smuggled  goods1. 

Your  Honors,  in  this  state  of  things  with  re- 
gard to  our  foreign  trade,  we  have  the  seeds  of  a 
national  disaster  of  great  proportions.  The  tariff- 
dike,  as  you  see,  is  being  made  powerless  to  pre- 
vent the  cancellation  of  our  domestic  demand  at 
the  ratio  of  5  to  1,  that  is  $5  of  American  home 
business  cancelled  for  every  dollar's  worth  of  for- 
eign goods  imported.  There  is  a  growing  trouble 
in  the  "feeling"  of  the  country.  Confidence  is 
oozing  away  because  the  underpinning  of  confi- 
dence, the  certainty  of  f  1.05  corning  back  for  every 
$1  expended  in  American  production,  has  been  and 
is  being  kicked  away  by  the  trickery  of  the  wily 
plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust.  But  mark,  your 
Honors:  This  trouble  is  coming  on  because  we 
have  no  sufficient  dike  to  dam  out  foreign  cancella- 
1i<ms  of  our  domestic  demand,  foreign  malicious 
animal  magnetism,  which  changes  into  dross  our 
domestic  coin  of  exchange,  wage-production. 

And  yet,  your  Honors,  the  wily  plaintiff  is  even 
now  beginning  to  instruct  its  newspapers  and 
orators  to  say  the  trouble  comes  from  "the  hin- 
drances to  foreign  trade  imposed  by  the  robber 
tariff!"  Pointing  at  our  failing  business  to  jus- 
tify its  declaration,  it  will  gibe  and  sneer  and  jeer 
at  the  tariff-dike  as  unable  to  make  prosperity; 
and  at  the  same  time  raise  a  din  for  "revision," 
in  order  to  "remove  the  shackles  from  the  sturdy 
young  limbs  of  the  great  American  giant  of  in- 
dustry/' And  it  is  quite  likely  it  will  succeed, 
as  it  has  done  so  many  times  before,  from  the  lap- 
ses1 of  the  national  memory,  or,  rather,  the  total 
absence  of  a  national  memory.  Then,  what  will 
follow?  .Tnst  what  has  followed  so  manv  times 


188 

before:  Before  the  dike  is  discounted  by  ad- 
vanced foreign  methods  of  production,  and  before 
the  Importing  Trust  has  picked  it  too  full  of  holes, 
the  season  of  prosperity  will  have  filled  our  prop- 
erty-producers so  full  of  the  belief  that  each  dol- 
lar they  put  out  in  material  and  labor  will  come 
back,  say,  fl.05  in  the  price  of  their  finished 
product,  that  large  numbers  of  them  will  have  run 
into  debt  to  increase  their  business.  Some  will 
have  put  up  as1  collateral  to  their  borrowings  vari- 
ous securities  which  were  earning  good  dividends 
and  paying  good  interest.  Others  will  have  mort- 
gaged real  estate.  And  some  will  have  been 
fortunate  enough  to  get  loans  for  stock  in  the  cor- 
porations of  which  they  are  the  moving  spirits. 
In  all  possible  ways1  these  people  will  have  given 
security  to  money-lenders.  Now  so  long  as  there 
is  a  bottom  in  the  country's  bucket,  so  long  as  it 
will  hold  the  fluid  of  American  demand,  which  buys 
their  goods  and  leaves'  them  a  profit,  their  credi- 
tors will  not  hesitate  to  extend  their  notes  and 
even  slightly  to  increase  their  loans.  The  coun 
try  seems  solid  as  oak  and  everything  goes  swim- 
mingly. But  now  the  dike  has  sprung  aleak 
through  the  hammer  and  crow-bar  of  the  wily 
plaintiff;  and  it  begins  to  be  hammered  by  a  lot 
of  the  hirelings  of  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Import- 
ing Trust,  who  get  paid  in  proportion  to  their  zeal 
and  the  weight  of  their  blows;  and  soon  a  lot  of 
bo°bv  babblers  among  the  would-be-intellectuals 
of  the  conntrv  also  take  up  hammers  and  bars 
aarainst  the  dike;  then  the  "raw  material"  fiends 
join  the  srang:  then  the  politicians  wake  up  and 
trv  their  hand  also;  then  a  lot  of  members  of  the 
Manufacturers'  Association,  with  mole-eyes  and 
gormand  bellies1,  swell  the  music;  and  it  ends  by 


189 

half  the  country  being  hypnotized  into  believing  that 
the  dreadful  high-tariff-dike,  already  as  good  as 
none  at  all  because  gushing  foreign  goods  at  every 
joint,  is  the  source  of  all  the  stringency  of  money 
conditions  really  arising  from  the  leaking  dike; 
and  finally,  instead  of  mending  the  dike  like  sen- 
sible people  and  putting  a  couple  of  additional 
stories  on  it  to  equalize  late  foreign  economies 
in  production,  the  whole  swarm  of  sap-heads 
makes  a  dead  rush  at  it  and  levels  to  the  sea-bot- 
tom the  already  tottering  dike.  Then  in  breaks 
the  foreign  deluge  with  hungry  fury.  Mill  after 
mill  closes'.  Furnace  after  furnace  puts  out  its 
fires.  Concern  after  concern  cuts  down  its  work- 
ing forces;  and  swarm  after  swarm  of  wage-pro- 
ducers is  turned  idle  on  the  streets  to  live  in- 
definitely on  charity  or  their  savings'.  Well,  a 
mill  that's  dead  is  no  good  security;  and  securi- 
ties that  depend  upon  the  earnings  of  such  a  mill 
are  no  good  collateral.  The  pay-roll  has  taken 
about  all  the  loose  cash  the  mill-owner  had  when 
he  paid  off  his  men  and  let  them  go.  But  the 
interest  on  his  large  note  is  coming  due.  He  hus- 
tles around  to  borrow  on  what  other  security  ho 
can  offer.  Money-lenders  wont  take  it.  It  is  per- 
haps a  mortgage  he  holds  on  some  employe's  house. 
But  the  employe  is  out  of  work  now,  and  the  mill 
is  closed  and  perhaps1  the  house  will  be  worth 
nothing  as  a  worker's  home;  because  the  mill  may 
never  open  and  the  workers  may  be  scattered  for 
good  and  all.  Who  knows?  At  any  rate  the 
lender  will  not  accept  the  mortgage  a's  security. 
Then  the  mill-owner  offers,  perhaps,  some  rail- 
road stock.  But,  no,  the  lender  says  that,  because 
its  freight-earnings  had  dwindled  so  and,  over  a 
large  part  of  it,  the  passenger  traffic  had  entirely 


190 

failed,  especially  where  it  had  depended  on  any  of 
the  closed  mills  along  the  route,  within  a  month 
after  the  dike  was  busted,  the  road  passed  its  divi- 
dend and  went  into  the  hands  of  a  receiver.  Well, 
nothing  the  mill-owner  offers  will  satisfy  the 
lender.  His  interest  falls  due  and  he  cannot  meet 
it.  His1  creditor  is  himself  a  debtor.  He  also 
has  notes  to  pay  and  he  has  depended  upon  the 
interest  from  the  mill-owner's  notes  to  pay  them; 
and  he  must  save  himself  as  he  can.  He  rushes 
into  court  and  gets  judgment  against  the  mill- 
owner;  and  the  sheriff  levies  on  the  mill  and  all 
its  contents  of  unsold  goods.  There  is  a  sale. 
The  property,  real  and  personal,  is  sold  out  under 
the  hammer.  The  mill-owner  is  ruined.  The  re- 
sults of  a  lifetime  of  hard  work  have  been  swept 
away.  And  very  likely  the  mill-owner  commits 
suicide.  This  is  what  happens  in  thousands  V)f 
oases.  Every  man  who  owes  money  is  in  danger 
of  being  sold  out,  and,  to  save  himself,  rushes  to 
those  who  owe  him  money  and  compels  payment. 
This  keeps  up  until  thousands  of  failures  occur 
every  day  and  the  country  is  swept  by  a  cyclone 
of  panic.  Wall  Street  has  already  fallen  with  a 
crash.  The  cockle-shell  of  speculation  was  crushed 
by  the  shock  which  knocked  values  out  of  the 
money-earning  collateral  it  relied  on;  because 
by  the  destruction  of  the  dike  and  the  in-rush 
of  cost-20  goods  to  supplant  cost-100  goods,  money- 
earning  was  cut  out  of  the  enterprises  which  is- 
sued the  securities.  This  is  the  plainest  matter 
in  the  world,  your  Honors.  We  cannot  believe 
the  wily  plaintiff's  counsel  are  talking  in  good 
faith,  when  they  affect  not  to  know  the  reason 
of  these  panics;  when  they  say  that  they  come 
a  round  about  once  in  eleven  years  and  are  be- 


191 

lieved  to  be  more  or  less  connected  with  the  sun- 
spots;  or  that  they  come  because  of  "short  crops;" 
or  "scarcity  of  money;"  or  "over-production;"  or 
the  "corner  in  gold;"  or  the  "exactions'  of  the 
trusts,"  who  sell  abroad  at  lower  prices  than  at 
home.  These  wily  counselors  to  the  wily  plain- 
tiff do  not  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  the 
panic  immediately  followed  the  smashing  of  the 
dike  and  that  the  country  was  already  in  the 
Slough  of  Despond  before  anybody  thought  to  lay 
it  to  any  of  these  things. 

Could  it  be  "over-production,"  your  Honors, 
when  the  demand  of  our  people  would  require 
all  the  goods  on  hand  and  more,  if,  by  the  smash- 
ing of  the  dike,  they  only  had  not  lost  their  jobs 
and  their  wherewithal  to  buy?  At  any  rate,  your 
Honors,  is  over-production  such  a  bad  thing,  when 
people  are  sure  of  their  jobs  at  any  rate;  even  if 
now  and  then  they  do  take  a  day  or  two  off  and 
wait  for  consumption  to  catch  up  with  demand? 
For,  your  Honors1,  people  who  believe  this  over- 
production yarn  seem  not  to  realize  what  a  tre- 
mendous* mountain  of  goods  is  swept  out  of  our 
markets  by  the  demand  of  a  single  well-paid  wage- 
producing  day  in  this  country.  Why,  your  Honors, 
rebuild  the  dike,  shut  out  foreign  supplies,  and 
every  particle  of  American  goods,  no  matter  how 
much,  could  be  swept  out  of  our  markets  in  a 
single  month  by  our  own  demand;  and  from  "hard 
times"  we  would  jump  instantly  over  our  heads 
into  the  tall  grass  of  good  times.  But,  your 
Honors,  instead  of  only  a  little  month,  these 
hard  times  which  they  say  come  from  "over-pro- 
duction" last  years  long,  when  the  dike  is  down; 
and  don't  you  think  it  looks  as  if  the  Importing 


192 

Trust  and  its  profits  were  at  the  bottom  of  this 
little  falsehood  about  "over-production." 

Furthermore,  your  Honors,  could  there  be  "over- 
production" of  more  than  a  few  hands  full  of  goods? 
Do  people  produce  goods  just  for  the  fun  of  it; 
or  do  they  produce  them  to  sell?  And  if  they 
found  their  goods  would  not  sell,  would  not  they 
just  stop  producing  a  little  while,  until  there  was 
a  demand  for  them,  instead  of  keeping  on  day 
after  day,  and  week  after  week,  and  month  after 
month,  "over-producing,"  that  is,  putting  their 
money  into  materials  and  labor,  only  to  let  the 
goods  lie  in  their  warehouses  to  become  moth- 
eaten  or  to  rust  out?  "Over-production,"  your 
Honors',  belies  the  intelligence  of  producers.  And 
especially  is  this  talk  of  "over-production"  very 
weak  when  it  applies  to  the  producers  of  a  whole 
great  country  like  ours.  It  means,  that  all  of  the 
producers  at  once  were  seized  with  a  sort  of  lunacy 
for  hazard-spiel,  for,  making  up  masses  of  capital 
into  goods  for  which  there  was  no  sale  and  per- 
haps not  likely  to  be. 

No,  your  Honors,  this  "over-production"  talk 
does  not  bridge  the  chasm.  It  does  not  wash. 
But,  your  Honors,  we  think  we  see  what  the 
wily  plaintiff  means*  by  "over-production"  with 
regard  to  our  industries.  It  is  simply  any 
American  production  at  all  when  the  dike  is 
down.  At  such  times  our  market  belongs  to  the 
Importing  Trust  and  it  is  mere  impudence  for 
an  American  property-producer  to  try  for  any  of 
it.  We  think  we  see  that  sort  of  over-production 
in  sight  now.  We  think  we  see  why,  to  revert  to 
the  language  of  our  Importing-Trust  orator  re- 
ferred to  a  few  moments  ago,  "most  manufacturers 
and  merchants  are  planning  their  fall  campaigns 


193 

with  much  conservatism;"  and  why,  "there  is 
really  little  division  of  well-informed  opinion 
that  the  period  ahead  of  us  is  one  in  which  com- 
mercial activities  will  be  curtailed  and  manu- 
facturers' totals  show  a  decrease."  And  we  have 
only  to  go  to  the  columns  of  an  Importing  Trust 
newspaper  of  the  "revisionist"  Republican  type 
for  the  explanation.  In  this  paper  one  item  reads 
like  this: 

"Despite  the  opening  of  the  fall  season  the  pig  iron 
market  continues  stagnant.  It  appears  absolutely  im- 
possible to  dispdse  of  pig  iron  except  in  very  small 
quantities  and  then  only  in  cases  of  emergency." 

This  quotation  is  upon  one  page  of  the  paper. 
We  turn  to  another  page  of  the  same  issue  of 

the  same  paper  and  find  an  item  headed  "Our 
Chief  Imports  by  Quantities;"  and  among  these 
imports'  we  find  there  were  564,846  tons  of  pig 
iron  imported  into  this  country  in  this  fiscal 
year  1907  as  against  23,316  tons  of  the  same  ar- 
ticle imported  into  this  country  during  the  fiscal 
year  1899.  We  think  that  an  increase  of  over 
2400%  in  the  imports  of  pig  iron  in  eight  years 
is  a  sufficient  cause  for  the  sentence,  "Despite  the 
opening  of  the  fall  season,  the  pig  iron  market 
continues  stagnant."  We  think  there  has  been  an 
"over-production"  of  pig  iron  abroad  for  our  mar- 
ket here.  When  there  is  trouble  anywhere  in 
France,  the  Frenchman  says  "Cherchez  la  femme!" 
But  when  there  is  any  "stagnation"  or  decay  any- 
where in  our  business  fabric,  Cherchez  la — leak  in 
the  dike!  The  leak  this  time  is  in  the  tariff  on 
pig  iron. 

Again,  in  the  same  paper,  we  find  this  item: 

"The  falling  prices  of  copper  will  very  soon  have 
an  appreciable  effect  on  the  mining  industry  of  Butte 


194 

ana  the  copper  output,  for  a  low  price  of  the  metal  will 
torce  many  lessees  and  small  mining  companies  to  quit 
operations. ' ' 

And  in  another  part  of  the  same  issue  of  the 
same  paper  we  find  the  statement  that,  whereas 
in  1899  the  Importing  Trust  brought  into  this 
country  10,292  tons  of  copper  ore  and  39,812,667 
pounds  of  pig  copper,  in  the  fiscal  year  1907  the 
same  Importing  Trust  brought  into  our  market 
278,488  tons  of  copper  ore,  and  198,442,715  pounds 
of  pig  copper.  We  rather  think  than  an  increase 
in  eight  years  of  2700  %  in  our  imports  of  copper 
ore  and  400%  in  our  imports  of  pig  copper  will 
be  the  cause  which  "will  force  many  lessees  and 
small  mining  companies  to  quit  operations;"  and 
we  are  quite  willing  to  grant  that  "over-produc- 
tion" is  the  thing  to  blame;  but  "over-production" 
of  foreign  copper  and  not  "over-production"  of 
American  copper  for  our  market. 

Your  Honors,  looking  over  this  list,  "Our  Chief 
Imports  by  Quantities,"  just  referred  to,  we  would 
not  be  surprised  if  there  were  various  other  items 
which  would  soon  suffer  from  the  same  sort  of 
"over-production"  which  is  threatening  so  seriously 
to  affect  copper  and  iron.  For  example,  we  note 
that  the  importation  of  lemons  has  increased  by 
over  fifty  millions  of  dozens  annually  since  1899. 
This  looks  like  a  serious  and  soon  "over-produc- 
tion" on  the  part  of  our  lemon-growers  in  Cali- 
fornia. 

Also  cotton  cloths'  appear  to  be  in  a  fair  way 
to  be  "over-produced"  in  the  quite  near  future; 
since  annual  imports  of  the  same  have  increased 
by  some  thirty  millions  of  square  yards  since 
1899. 

Furthermore,  we  are  annually  importing  some 


195 

fifty-odd  millions  of  pounds  of  raw  cotton  more 
than  eight  years  ago;  some  twenty  million  square 
yards  of  woolen  dress-goods,  s'ome  twenty-two 
million  pounds  of  cheese,  some  twenty-two  million 
pounds  of  leaf  tobacco,  some  three  million  pounds 
of  wrapper  tobacco,  some  million  and  a  quarter 
pounds  of  woolen  cloths',  some  one  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  dozens  of  bottles  of  champagne, 
some  two  hundred  and  twenty-thousand  tons  of 
nitrate  of  soda,  and  some  one  hundred  and  eighty 
thousand  tons  of  wood  pulp,  more  than  we  im- 
ported eight  years  ago;  and  we  would  not  be  at 
all  surprised  to  discover  by  the  end  of  the  year 
that  we  were  charged  by  the  Importing  Trust  with 
serious  "over-production"  in  all  these  directions. 
At  any  rate,  your  Honors,  imports  in  all  these 
things  are  rapidly  increasing  to  compete  with  'our 
own  farms  and  factories;  and,  contrary  to  pru- 
dent statesmanship  and  to  natural  justice,  the  in- 
crease in  wages  which  would  respond  to  the  ad- 
ditional employment  of  our  own  wage-producers, 
in  making  these  goods  now  imported,  is  being  de- 
nied our  workers.  The  dike  is  already  leaking 
badly  enough  in  all  conscience  without  any  "re- 
vision." 

Your  Honors,  with  almost  inexhaustible  sup- 
plies of  copper  in  our  own  mines,  the  Import- 
ing Trust  bids  fair  before  many  years  to  handle 
most  of  our  copper  through  its  commission  houses1; 
and  for  the  simple  reason  that  there  is  no  tariff  - 
dike  against  copper  in  any  of  its  unworked  forms. 
And  in  spite  of  a  tariff  of  40c  a  ton  on  iron  ore 
and  $4  on  pig  iron  the  importation  of  pig  iron  has 
rolled  over  twenty-four  times  in  eight  years  and 
is  still  rolling;  while  imports  of  copper  ore,  with- 
out a  tariff,  were  rolling  over  twenty-seven  times! 


196 

We  observe,  your  Honors,  that  wool  is  in  some- 
thing of  the  same  sort  of  a  fix  as  copper  and  iron. 
In  eight  years  the  Importing  Trust  has  increased 
its  commissions  from  this  source  by  increasing 
from  77,000,000  pounds  to  204,000,000  pounds  its 
annual  sales  of  foreign  wool  in  this  market. 
Again,  with  regard  to  this  article,  we  have  bound- 
less territory  good  for  nothing  but  wool-raising; 
while  a  defective  tariff  dike  has  caused  imports 
of  wool  to  roll  over  nearly  three  times  in  eight 
years.  We  observe  that  "over-production"  of  wool 
is  very  close  at  hand  for  the  American  farmer. 
Evidently  the  tariff-dike  needs  no  "revision"  to 
assist  the  country  to  "cheaper"  wool. 

In  passing,  we  remark  one  thing,  your  Honors: 
With  one  of  its  mouths,  the  Importing  Trust  says 
we  need  no  tariff  dike,  because  our  "inexhaust- 
ible supplies  of  raw  materials."  in  which  we 
"stand  without  a  peer,"  coupled  with  our  "invent- 
ive genius"  in  making  machinery,  assure  us  for 
all  time  lower  costs  than  can  be  reached  elsewhere. 
And  yet,  your  Honors,  in  spite  of  the  tariff-dike, 
iron,  copper  and  wool,  came  surging  in  here  in 
irresistible  billows?  Why  is  this,  your  Honors? 
If  our  "raw  materials"  are  so  abundant  that  we  can- 
not be  beaten  in  price,  why  do  foreign  "raw 
materials"  come  pouring  across  the  water  and  over 
the  top  of  our  dike?  If  we  had  no  dike  at  all,  as 
the  Importing  Trust  wishes,  would  these  "raw 
materials"  stop  coming  over?  Is  it  the  dike  that 
makes  them  come,  your  Honors?  If  it  is,  why 
does  the  Importing  Trust  want  the  dike  taken 
down?  Doesn't  it  want  any  commissions  on  "raw 
materials?"  Doesn't  it  want  "over-production" 
in  these  things,  too;  "over-production"  by  foreign 
producers  for  American  markets?  But  if  it  is  hon- 


197 

est  when  it  says  "we  can't  be  beat"  in  cheapness 
because  of  our  "unexampled  supplies  of  raw  ma- 
terial" and  "unequalled  genius  for  doing  things 
on  a  great  scale,"  why  does  it  want  the  dike  down 
on  "raw  materials?"  If  the  Importing  Trust  can't 
beat  us  any  way,  because  of  our  "unexampled 
supplies"  and  "unequalled  genius,"  what  harm 
does  the  dike  do  if  it  stands?  If  it  were  down, 
these  "raw  materials"  couldn't  get  in  here,  could 
they,  if  we  have  such  "unexampled  supplies"  and 
"unequalled  genius?" 

But  this  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust  is 
very  funny,  your  Honors.  We  have  just  told  you 
why  it  says  we  "can't  be  beat" — it  is  "unexampled 
supplies"  and  "unequalled  genius"  that  take  the 
trick.  We  have  both  bowers  and  the  joker.  But 
with  another  of  its'  mouths,  the  wily  plaintiff  says 
we  ought  to  "let  raw  materials  come  in  free,  so 
our  manufacturers  can  get  them  cheaper,  work 
them  up  into  goods,  cheaper,  at  any  rate,  than 
they  would  be  if  American  "raw  materials"  were 
used,  and  send  them  abroad  to  "conquer  the  mar- 
kets of  the  world,"  thus  "giving  more  work  to 
our  manufacturers  and  higher  wages  to  their  em- 
ployes." Isn't  this  very  funny?  Our  "raw  ma- 
terials" are  so  cheap  by  nature  that  nobody  can 
get  them  so  cheap;  but  our  "raw  materials"  are 
so  dear  by  nature  that  unless  our  manufacturers 
get  foreign  raw  materials  they  can't  get  the  big 
bird  in  the  bush  of  a  market  abroad. 

The  confusion  of  the  Importing  Trust  prophets 
upon  this  subject  of  raw  materials,  your  Honors, 
is  a  conclusive  proof  of  the  bad  faith  in  which  they 
carry  on  their  warfare  against  our  client,  the  de- 
fendant, American  Production.  This  confusion 
is  so  great,  even  in  the  same  mind,  that  from  one 


side  of  his  mouth  an  Importing  Trust  minion  will 
say  that  we  beat  the  earth  in  all  sorts  of  raw 
materials,  and  from  the  other  that  wre  are  very 
defective  in  this  regard.  To  clinch  our  statement 
we  cannot  forbear  citing  an  example  of  this  con- 
fusion. Here  we  have  a  New  York  Free  Trade 
newspaper,  notoriously  pro-British  in  its  man- 
agement, under  date  of  September  23,  1907,  say- 
ing this  with  regard  to  our  raw  materials: 

"It  may  help  to  put  a  better  face  upon  the  facts  if 
we  regard  these  importations  as  the  remedy — the  ac- 
customed remedy,  in  fact — for  the  chief  cause  of  our 
industrial  check.  Every  authority  agrees  that  we  have 
suffered  from  deficiency  of  capital.  Here  is  the  proof 
that  we  are  remedying  the  deficiency  at  an  unexampled 
rate,  and  yet  there  is  general  dismay." 

This  article,  your  Honors,  was  one  attempting 
to  quiet  the  fears  of  our  business  men  awakened 
by  our  greatly  increased  imports,  which  threat- 
ened soon  to  leave  a  trade  balance  against  us. 

— "and  yet  there  is  general  dismay.  It  can  only  re- 
sult from  the  confusion  of  thought  which  regards  capi- 
tal as  exclusively  gold,  or  as  bank  credits.  In  fact  the 
deficiency  in  those  forms  of  capital  is  the  least  import- 
ant part  of  our  present  deficiency  of  capital.  WE 
HAVE  LACKED  PARTICULARLY  EVERY  FORM  OF 
RAW  MATERIAL.  There  was  a  shortage  a  few  months 
ago  of  copper  metal,  but  its  importation  swelled  the  fig- 
ures under  discussion  and  helped  to  revive  the  consump- 
tion of  copper  through  the  reduction  in  price  which  re- 
sulted from  the  accumulation  of  stocks." 

Please  observe,  your  Honors,  that  while  this 
creature  of  the  Importing  Trust  is  trying  to 
quiet  our  fears  with  regard  to  our  growing 
imports,  it  smooths  the  matter  over  by 
saying,  "We  have  lacked  particularly  every 
form  of  raw  material."  Now,  in  another 
part  of  the  same  paper,  in  making  an  assault  on 
our  tariff-dike,  which  prevents  its  British  masters 


199 

from  destroying  American  industries,  wishing  to 
show  that  we  really  have  no  need  of  the  dike,  it 
says: 

"But  as  pointed  out  by  Governor  Folk,  the  economic 
vice  of  the  protective  tariff  is  not  less  conspicuous  than 
its  violation  of  equity.  Here  we  are  a  Nation  with  im- 
mense resources  which  we  are  developing  with  steady 
determination  and  energy  with  the  announced  purpose  of 
taking  a  great  part,  if  possible  a  dominant  part,  in  the 
commerce  of  the  world.  And  we  keep  in  operation  a 
system  of  obstruction  and  restriction  of  commerce  of  the 
most  rigid,  complex,  vexatious,  and  costly  character.  IF 
IT  WERE  NOT  TOR  OUR  EXTRAORDINARY  NAT- 
URAL ADVANTAGES,  THE  IMMENSE  RANGE  AND 
VARIETY  OF  THE  PRODUCTS  OF  OUR  SOIL  AND 
OUR  MINES,  and  the  unfailing  stream  of  immigration 
from  our  earliest  days  as  a  nation,  we  never  could  have 
stood  our  own  efforts  to  impede  trade.  Sooner  or  later 
the  reversal  of  this  absurd  policy,  the  emancipation  of 
our  commerce,  is  bound  to  be  a  dominant  issue  in  our 
politics,  and  it  may  be  sooner  rather  than  later." 

Here,  in  the  same  Importing  Trust  newspaper, 
in  immediately  contiguous  columns,  we  have  the 
statement  on  the  one  hand  that  we  have  been  and 
are  importing  very  heavily  because  we  have  "lacked 
raw  material  in  every  form7'  and  on  the  other  hand 
that  we  have  "impeded  trade"  with  our  dike  and 
all  that  has  saved  us  from  sorrow  is  an  "immense 
range  and  variety  of  products  of  our  soil  and 
mines.'-  To  justify  increasing  imports,  we  are 
lacking  in  raw  materials  and  they  are  flowing  in 
as  if  we  had  no  dike.  To  justify  a  wholesale 
damnation  of  the  troublesome  tariff-dike,  we  have 
raw  materials  in  great  abundance,  which  save  us 
from  ruin.  In  each  case,  it  will  be  noticed,  how- 
ever, the  writer  had  the  same  object,  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  dike,  in  the  faithful  and  true  service 
of  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  and  all 
its  cruel  designs  against  the  homes  of  American 
Avagc-producers*.  But  this  is  not  all  we  find  in  this 
same  issue  of  the  same  paper.  We  have  a  com- 


200 

munication  printed  there  from  a  New  York  Cleve- 
land Democrat  and  a  notorious  Free  Trader,  in 
which  occurs  the  following  language: 

"In  this  praise  of  Mr.  Whitney's  speeches,  which  I 
share  with  your  editorial  of  to-day  [Sept.  20],  I  would 
make  one  qualification.  The  census  returns  of  1900  and 
the  Bulletins  of  the  Bureau  of  Statistics  which  bring 
these  down  to  date,  afford  sufficient  material  to  enable 
us  clearly  to  see  that  the  principal  raw  materials,  such 
as  iron  ores,  coal,  lumber,  and  hides,  should  at  once  be 
put  on  the  free  list,  and  that  it  should  be  immediately 
enacted  that  no  duty  except  in  the  case  of  wine,  spirits, 
and  tobacco,  should  exceed  50  per  cent.  With  these  two 
immediate  reforms,  we  could  go  about  tariff  revision 
somewhat  on  the  lines  suggested  by  Mr.  Whitney  [Demo- 
cratic candidate  for  Governor  of  Massachusetts],  through 
the  medium  of  an  intelligent  commission,  without  serious 
derangement  to  business  and  to  the  great  and  lasting 
benefit  cf  the  whole  country." 

We  have  already  read  to  you,  your  Honors,  the 
words  of  a  celebrated  Importing  Trust  orator  and 
author  who  says  "we  have  combined  with  the  ad- 
vantage of  unexampled  supplies  of  raw  material 
an  unequalled  genius  for  doing  things  on  a  great 
scale." 

It  is  too  plain  for  dispute  that  what  all  these 
people  are  after  is  not  American  prosperity,  but 
the  prosperity  of  the  wily  plaintiffs  herein. 

These  Importing  Trust  advocates  should  get  to- 
gether and  settle  upon  a  uniform  falsehood,  and 
see  what  they  can  do  towards  proving  that  a  lie 
well  stuck  to  is  as  good  as  the  truth.  For,  if  they 
keep  on  telling  opposite  lies  for  the  same  purpose 
they  may  be  charged  with  inconsistency.  You  will 
remember  that  one  of  our  doctors  said  that  Eng- 
land had  fallen  behind  to  the  third  place  in  inter- 
national commerce,  while  the  United  States  had 
gone  to  first  place  and  Germany  had  pulled  her- 
self up  to  second.  But  we  have  just  heard  another 
doctor  say  that  we  have  "impf*ded  trade"  by  our 


201 

tariff  dike.  If  great  "we"  have  impeded  trade  by 
a  tariff  dike,  what  must  have  happened  to  little 
Germany,  with  a  dike  worse  than  ours.  But  Ger- 
many has  been  so  "impeded"  by  her  dike  that  she 
has  beaten  England  who  has  no  dike;  and  we  have 
been  so  "impeded"  thereby  that  we  have  gone  clean 
to  the  head  of  the  class. 

But  let  us  return  to  the  various'  subterfuges 
which  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  em- 
ploys to  hide  the  havoc  which  always  follows  dike 
"revision"  downward. 

As  it  is  with  "over-production,"  your  Honors,  so 
it  is  with  "scarcity  of  money,"  given  as  a  reason  for 
hard  times  after  the  dike  has  been  "revised." 
Money  is  then  scarce  to  invest  in  American  produc- 
tion or  business  of  any  kind,  except  that  of  the  wily 
plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust.  Because  there  is  no 
chance  for  any  American  business  to  succeed  at 
cost-100  while  the  country  is  being  inundated  with 
all  forms  of  cost-20  goods.  No  money-lender  can 
see  any  security  in  a  mortgage  on  an  American  mill, 
while  the  wheels1  of  the  mill  are  silent  and  its  chim- 
ney smokeless,  with  no  assurance  in  sight  as  to 
when  the  mill  will  start  again.  And  when  rail- 
roads are  in  the  hands  of  receivers,  as  they  were  in 
the  Cleveland  low-dike  era,  between  1893  and  1896, 
neither  their  stock  nor  their  bonds  are  considered 
the  best  of  security  by  the  "malefactors  of  great 
wealth"  who  otherwise  would  advance  the  where- 
withnl.  That  condition,  when  the  dike  is  busted 
and  the  times  are  hard,  accounts  both  for  "scarcity 
of.  money"  and  "the  high  price  of  gold,"  or  "the 
corner  in  gold,"  of  the  days  of  Bryanesque  jim  jams 
in  1896. 

We  pas's  over  the  "sun-spot"  theory  of  hard  times. 
It  is  too  profound  for  us  to  handle  with  our  usual 


202 

distinguished  ability.     Alas,  for  our  unresponsive 
brain-cells ! 

Then  they  say,  your  Honors,  do  these  wily  plain- 
tiffs', that  the  trouble  which  follows  the  "revision" 
of  the  dike  arises  from  "bad"  or  "short"  crops.  At 
any  rate,  when  the  people  have  kicked  up  a  large 
bobbery  over  the  broken  dike  and  have  repaired  it 
more  or  less,  these  wily  plaintiffs  account  for  the 
reurn  of  good  times  by  -'good  crops."  It  is  strange 
that  there  are  never  any  good  crops'  when  the  dike 
is  in  a  state  of  "revision."  But  it  is  easy  to  ex- 
plain "bumper  crops,"  your  Honors.  When  the 
dike  is  "revised,"  prices  are  so  low  because  of  our 
weak  workless  demand,  arising  from  our  want  of 
wages  to  buy  with,  that  there  is  no  encouragement 
to  a  farmer  to  raise  much  more  than  what  he  wants 
to  eat  himself  So  he  does  not  do  it.  But  when  the 
mended  dike  dams  money  in  the  country  and  for- 
eign competition  out,  demand  picks  up  and  prices1 
follow ;  then  the  farmer  plants  with  the  crops  that 
bring  the  best  price  every  inch  of  ground  he  can 
clear  and  clean.  Now,  your  Honors,  this  country 
is  a  good  deal  larger  than  an  ordinary  pocket  hand- 
kerchief, and  when  prices  are  high,  and  the  returns 
are  in  at  harvest  time,  the  crop  from  this  whole 
great  country  is  sure  to  be  a  "bumper."  Bad 
weather  cannot  spoil  a  part  of  it  large  enough  not 
to  leave  an  abundance  afterwards.  And  so,  as 
times  continue  good  behind  the  dike,  the  farmer 
plants  more  and  more  every  year,  because  it  means 
more  and  more  cash.  But  sinas'h  the  dike,  let  prices 
fall  to  the  bottom  rung,  and  your  crops  fall  with 
them. 

What  is  a  crop  worth,  if  you  can't  sell  it? 

"Over-trading"  and  "over-speculation"  are  of  the 
same  sort  of  timber  as  the  "over-production"  apol- 


203 

ogy  for  the  hard  times  following  "revision."  If 
you  "over-trade"  and  business  still  is  good,  just  hold 
your  horses  a  moment,  until  they  quit  their  canter- 
ing and  until  steadiness  returns  to  the  vehicle.  If 
you  "over-speculate''  you  are  a  bad  penny,  anyway, 
and  belong  to  the  crazy-gamblers  ward  at  Bellevue. 
But  in  either  case,  with  the  dike  down,  and  the  Im- 
porting Trust  doing  all  the  business,  when  a  man 
is  pulled  to  his  knees,  there  is  no  getting  up. 
Everything  is  flat  and  the  devil  to  pay  with  no  pitch 
hot 


XX 


IT  IS  THE  CENTURY-OLD  POLICY  OF  THE  WILY  PLAIN- 
TIFF, THE  IMPORTING  TRUST,  TO  FORCE  THE  PROS- 
PERITY OF  THIS  COUNTRY  TO  DEPEND  UPON  CROPS. 

The  reason  why  the  Importing  Trust  and  all  its 
retainers  have  so  much  to  say  about  "crops"  as  the 
rock  upon  which  American  prosperity  is  built,  is 
that  the  condition  which  has  made  us  so  largely  an 
agricultural  people,  and  therefore  so  largely  de- 
pendent upon  crops,  is  one  created  by  the  power  of 
the  Importing  Trust  expressly  to  keep  its  hold  on 
our  cash.  You  will  recollect  that  we  said  some 
time  back  that  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing 
Trust,  had  been  since  our  earliest  colonial 
times,  the  worst  enemy  of  American  Production, 
and  for  the  reason  that  American  products  compete 
in  our  market  here  with  foreign  products  and  the 
Importing  Trust  gets  no  brokerage  from  American 
products ;  whereas1  it  gets  a  very  high  brokerage  on 
every  pound,  yard,  and  gross  of  foreign  products 
brought  into  our  market.  You  will  remember  what 


204 

we  said  about  this  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing 
Trust,  securing  acts  of  Parliament  forbidding  us, 
as  American  colonists,  to  manufacture  various 
goods,  in  order  to  compel  us  to  buy  all  our  manufac- 
tured necessaries  and  luxuries  of  the  wily  plaintiff. 
We  were  not  forbidden  to  raise  farm  stuff,  for  the 
English  wanted  that  and  got  it  at  their  own  price. 
Therefore,  instead  of  developing  in  a  consistent  and 
symmetrical  manner  upwards  from  a  broad  base  of 
diversified  industries,  we  were  forced  in  the  direc- 
tion of  wheat,  and  corn,  cotton,  lumber,  and  such 
things;  and  instead  of  being  able  to  sell  our  farm 
products  to  our  own  manufacturing  settle- 
ments, which  we  would  have  been  permitted  to  build 
but  for  England's  Exporting  and  Importing  Trusts, 
we  were  compelled  still  to  raise  food  for  "the  mar- 
kets of  the  world"  and  so  to  wander  farther  and 
farther  West  and  turn  up  new  grain  fields  and  lay 
out  new  cattle  ranches,  all  to  feed  "the  world"  in- 
stead of  ourselves.  In  other  words,  we  were  con- 
gested upon  one  general  field  of  employment,  to  our 
practical  enslavement  to  foreign  patronage  of  our 
products.  And  so  our  "crops"  came  to  cut  a  large 
figure  in  our  foreign  trade,  and  they  have  continued 
to  hold  us  in  a  sort  of  peonage  to  Europe  ever  since. 
If  our  "crops"  fail  we  are  under  the  wheels  of 
Europe's  automobile  in  a  moment.  Because  about 
one-half  of  all  the  heap  of  stuff  we  send  abroad 
every  year  is  products  of  the  soil ;  and  as  our 
ostensible  credit  balance  last  year,  for  instance, 
was  about  $400,000,000,  if  our  exports  of  $2,000,- 
000,000  were  reduced  by  "bad  crops"  to  $1,000,000,- 
000,  we  should  be  owing  $600,000,000  a  year  to  for- 
eign countries  instead  of  their  owing  us,  and  soon  be 
in  the  midst  of  a  panic.  And  "bad  crops"  would 
immediately  follow  the  "revision"  of  the  dike.  This 


205 

is  a  vicious  and  quite  unnecessary  condition  of 
things,  your  Honors.  There  is  no  sound  reason,  un- 
less to  increase  the  commissions  of  the  Importing 
Trust  be  a  sound  reason,  for  our  constantly  rising 
imports  of  manufactured  goods.  More,  your  Hon- 
ors, there  is  no  reason  whatever,  except  a  reason 
which  spells  profit  to  these  wily  plaintiffs,  the  Im- 
porting and  the  Exporting  Trusts,  and  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  whole  country,  why  we  should  import  a 
penny's  worth  of  anythiug  at  all.  As  we  have  said 
before  and  now  say  again  in  all  seriousness,  we 
can  easily  produce  a  satisfactory  substitute  for,  if 
not  the  exact  counterpart  of,  everything  we  now 
import.  And  this  statement  extends  to  coffee,  tea, 
and  spices.  But  we  are  in  perpetual  bondage  to 
foreign  countries  in  order  that  the  Importing  Trust 
may  get  richer  and  richer  at  our  expense  and  our 
Exporting  Trust  may  learn  deeper  and  deeper  les- 
sons in  its  text-book  of  treason.  We  are  made 
the  foot-ball  of  weather  and  foreign  diplomacy  by 
being  tied  down  to  "crops"  as  the  pivot  of  our 
prosperity.  And  yet  "crops"  fail  at  the  time  they 
are  most  needed  and  for  a  good  reason.  They 
never  were  known  to  fail  until  the  dike  was  broken 
down.  The  breaking  of  the  dike  kills  American 
demand  in  the  way  we  have  explained  before.  That 
makes  prices  too  low  for  profit,  and  the  farmei 
does  not  see  why  he  should  work  for  nothing  any 
more  than  the  manufacturer.  Why  should  he  sweat 
himself  thin  just  to  send  more  "crops"  to  Europe 
at  Europe's  own  price  and  keep  "the  balance  of 
trade"  favorable  for  our  bankers  and  the  Importing 
Trust?  So  when  prices  drop,  the  American  farmer 
drops,  and  the  "crops"  drop,  tno,  at  the  very  md- 
ment  when,  by  compelling  us  to  buy  goods  abroad, 
the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  has  created 


20G 

the  need  of  even  greater  "crops"  to  "balance"  the 
damage  it  has  done.  This  accounts  for  the  frightful 
swing  and  sweep  of  panic  among  us  when  the  dike 
is  broken  down  or  "revised."  Yet,  your  Honors, 
see  by  what  shrewd  shuffling  the  wily  plaintiff 
tries  to  fool  our  people!  The  dike  is  broken  first. 
American  demand  for  farm  produce  instantly  fol- 
lows; and  low  prices  drive  the  American  farmer 
to  gunning  for  woodchucks  instead  of  planting  po- 
tatoes, corn,  and  wheat.  The  "crops"  lie  down. 
Imports  go  up  with  nothing  to  call  their  bluff. 
Panic  overwhelms  us.  But  the  wily  plaintiff 
shuffles  the  pack  so  the  panic  card  turns  up  in  his 
hand  after  the  "short  crops"  card,  and  he  says, 
"See!  Short  crops  drew  out  panic!" 

A  wise  policy  would  so  distribute  our  property- 
production  that  there  would  be  no  surplus  for  ex- 
port. We  would  raise  all  our  own  sugar,  for  one 
thing,  putting  a  prohibitive  tariff-dike  up  against 
Cuba  and  all  other  sugar-producing  countries; 
and  we  would  do  the  same  with  rice  and  tobacco; 
and  follow  with  a  good  export  tariff  on  cotton  and 
a  prohibitive  import  tariff  both  on  raw  and  manu- 
factured cotton.  We  would  also  gradually  pro- 
hibit the  importation  of  wool  and  double  our  tar- 
iffs on  manufactures  of  wool.  We  would  prohibit 
the  importation  of  steel  in  any  form  and  place 
an  export  tariff  on  all  its  products.  The  importa- 
tion or  exportation  of  ores  of  all  kinds  should 
likewise  be  prohibited.  And  so  we  would  go  over 
the  list,  gradually  increasing  the  tariffs  on  every 
manufacture;  prohibiting  the  importation  of 
every  staple  of  the  soil  and  every  food  product; 
and  placing  an  export  tariff  on  everything  now 
exported  in  large  quantities,  and  especially  on  all 
articles  which  are  habitually  s'old  abroad  cheaper 


207 

than  at  home.     In  this  way  our  own  people  would 
have  the  benefit  on  the  one  hand  of  all  the  employ- 
ment necessary  to  supply  our  own  wants,  which 
would  make  wages  high;  and  of  limiting  largely 
to  the  domestic  market  the  sale  of  supplies  aris- 
ing from  our  own  industry,   which  would  make 
prices   constantly   lower    until   they   reached   the 
point  where  a  lower  price  would  cause  the  emi- 
gration of  capital,  where  they  would  stick.     Your 
Honors,  we  cannot  too  seriously  impress  upon  you 
the  great  importance  of  turning  over  a  new  leaf 
in    this   matter.     These  wily  plaintiffs   should   be 
sent  to  the  tail  of  the  procession.     They  are  lead- 
ing our  country  into  a  bad  morass.     They  breed 
in  us  a  sort  of  conceit  best  adapted  to  keeping  us 
docile  in  their  service.     They  tell  us  about  "un- 
exampled supplies  of  raw  materials"  and  say  we 
are  destined  forever  to  be  "the  granaries  of  the 
world."  And  so  they  brush  and  curry  us  and  feed  us 
sugar  from  their  hands.  Nobody  has  such  wheat  fields ; 
nobody  such  cotton  soil!    Our  cattle  ranches  beat 
the  sun,  moon,  and  stars  and  all  the  planets!    We 
are  simply  immense!    Did  you  ever  stop  to  think, 
your  Honors,  what  it  was  that,  in  the  mind  of  the 
wily  plaintiff,  makes  us  such  good  fellows  for  pur- 
veying to  Europe,  sending  her  our  wheat,  and  corn, 
and  cotton,  our  beef,  pork,  and  other  provisions? 
Simply  because  as  long  as  we  will  feed  Europe, 
she  will  be  perfectly  willing  to  do  our  manufact- 
uring.    It  pays  to  manufacture  and  it  don't  pay 
to  feed  the  manufacturer  at  the  manufacturer's 
figures.    But  that  is  what  we  are  doing  for  Europe. 
We  are  wasting  the  very  royal  substance  of  our 
noble  country  in  feeding  aliens  to  destroy  our  in- 
dustries.    If  we  should  get  the  prices  at  which 
alone  it  would  pay  us  to  export  it,  Europe  would 


20S 

not  buy  it  or  u&.  She  would  raise  her  own  food. 
She  has  land  enough  to  do  it;  and  to  do  it,  all 
she  would  need  to  do  would  be  to  put  a  portion 
of  the  power  she  now  puts  into  her  manufactur- 
ing upon  the  transformation  of  her  gentleman's 
parks  and  shooting  preserves,  her  swamps  and  her 
forests,  into  grain  fields  and  cattle  farms.  The 
wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  through  its 
learned  counsel,  has  told  you  that  Europe  would 
starve  if  we  shut  off  her  food  supply,  for  we  are 
the  onliest  only  food-producer  in  the  world.  All 
rot,  your  Honors.  The  Importing  Trust  says  so 
because  the  Importing  Trust  does  not  want  us  to 
shut  off  its  commissions  by  building  factories  in- 
stead of  grain-elevators.  It  has  been  on  the  job 
of  collecting  tribute  from  us  as  colony  and  State, 
for  a  couple  of  "hundred  years  or  so,  and  it  has 
succeeded  tolerably  well  in  making  the  thought- 
less think  there  is  something  like  a  divine  right 
in  its  hold  on  us.  As  long  as  it  was  big  enough 
and  we  were  little  enough,  it  bullied  us  outright 
and  made  us  carry  water  to  its  mill.  But  now 
that  it  can  paddle  us  no  more,  it  hypnotizes  us. 
That  is  the  course  taken  in  all  its  newspapers. 
There  is  no  argument  in  the  discourse  you  read 
about  "revising"  the  tariff.  They  do  not  state  a 
single  fact  to  back  their  glittering  generalities. 
They  merely  suggest  the  imperishable  perservance 
of  foreign  trade.  They  assume  it  is  the  thing, 
and  the  only  thing  we  have  to  look  to  for  happi- 
ness. And  by  these  suggestions  they  breathe  into 
the  million  the  feeling  that  foreign  trade  is  the 
whole  show.  This  is  the  tone  of  all  the  large 
bankers  and  brokers  in  our  seaboard  cities.  The 
boards  of  trade  almost  universally  fiddle  on  the 
same  string.  The  orator  from  whom  we  quoted 


209 

about  the  "practically  certain  recession  in  trade" 
and  who  drapes  in  the  impenetrable  cloud  of  Olym- 
pian mystery  the  whole  fact  of  the  killing  effect 
of  imports  upon  our  business  activity,   is  a  dis- 
tinguished  banker   in   one   of   our    great   seaport 
cities;  and  his  whole  oration  is  based  on  the  un- 
utterable unutterableness  of  foreign  trade  as  the 
key  to  American  development.    This  seems  as  true 
to  these  people  as  it  is  false  in  fact.     They  have 
been  reared  in   an   importing  atmosphere.     They 
think    in    terms    of    exports    and    imports.      The 
"money  market"  is1  believed  to  be  dependent  upon 
the  "crop  report"   as  showing  our  probable   bal- 
ance of  credit  in  foreign  hands.     But  the  fact  is, 
your  Honors1,  this  country  is  great  in  spite  of  for- 
eign trade,  not  because  of  it;  and  it  is  great  only 
in  the  proportion  in  which  its  sagacity  is  great 
enough,  by  an  adequate  tariff  dike,  to  shut  out 
cost-20   foreign  goods  from  its  cost-100  domestic 
market 

To  encourage  exports,  your  Honors,  is  to  en- 
courage a  non-symmetrical  unfolding  of  our  eco- 
nomical life.  This1  means  disaster  in  the  near 
future.  Instead  of  exhausting  our  soil  only 
enough  to  feed  our  own  people,  we  are  boasting 
that  we  "are  feeding  the  world,"  as  counsel  for 
the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  said  in 
your  hearing,  an  hour  or  so  ago.  Instead  of  rais- 
ing only  cotton  enough  to  run  our  own  mills,  we 
think  it  a  great  feather  in  our  cap  to  raise  enough 
for  Europe  besides.  But  Europe  is  laughing  in 
its  sleeve;  for  the  only  reason  it  does  not  raise 
its  own  cotton  through  its  African  and  South 
American  dependencies  and  allies,  is  because  it 
pays  better  to  spend  its  money  in  cotton  factories, 
make  up  our  cotton  into  goods  and  then  send 


210 

them  back  to  us.  And  so  we  go  on  exhausting 
in  a  century  stores'  that  should  last  us  a  thousand 
years  at  least;  and  all  the  time  we  are  giving  the 
other  fellow  the  best  end  of  the  job.  For  we 
send  him  a  bale  of  cotton  for  which  he  pays  us 
X  dollars;  and  from  that  same  bale  of  cotton 
he  returns  us  cotton  manufactures  for  which  we 
pay  him  X+Y  dollars.  He  keeps  us  at  work 
hoeing  corn  to  feed  his  pigs  which  he  slaughters 
and  sells  back  to  us  for  twice  as  much  money  as 
he  paid  us  for  the  corn  that  fattened  them.  Mean- 
time, he  is  doing  a  work  which  raises  him  higher 
and  higher  while  we  are  wrestling  with  a  job 
which  keeps  us  most  of  the  time  in  cow-hide  boots 
and  blue-over-alls.  Our  service  comes  very  cheap 
to  him;  his  very  dear  to  us. 

But  this  is  not  all,  your  Honors.  In  this  pur- 
veying to  foreign  needs,  we  get  a  distorted  de- 
velopment. If  we  raised  food  for  our  own  people 
alone,  we  would  not  employ  a  larger  force  than 
necessary  to  that  end.  But  if  we  furnish  food  for 
the  world,  we  draw  off  into  our  food-making  in- 
dustry a  disproportionate  number  of  our  people. 
Now  if  we  kept  only  enough  farmers  in  the  field 
to  farm  for  us,  they  would  never  lack  a  market. 
But  if  we  trained  a  great  army  of  them  to  work 
for  Europe,  and  Europe  should  take  a  notion 
some  day  to  do  her  own  work  in  that  line  or  buy 
it  elsewhere,  what  would  our  army  of  farmers  do, 
being  thus  out  of  employment?  For  employment 
means  grub;  and  in  this  problem  of  national  hap- 
piness, your  Honors,  we  are  dealing  very  largely 
with  stomachs  which  on  pain  of  their  otherwise 
going  on  strike  and  putting  their  owners1  out  of 
business,  have  to  be  filled  several  times  every 
twenty-four  hours.  This  matter  of  domestic  trade 


211 

is,  after  all,  a  very  homely,  and  we  are  afraid  to 
some  of  our  broad-clothed,  free-trade  doctrinaires, 
a  very  vulgar  business;  but  upon  it  depend  our 
hearts  and  homes  and  hopes. 

For  all  these  reasons,  your  Honors,  we  believe 
that  we  should  "cut  out"  foreign  trade  altogether 
and  with  it  our  dependence  upon  "crops"  as  our 
one  source  of  happiness1. 


XXI 

THE  ATTEMPT  OF  THE  WILY  PLAINTIFF,  THE  IM- 
PORTING TRUST,  TO  AROUSE  OUR  PEOPLE  AGAINST 
AMERICAN  PRODUCTION  MISNAMED  "THE 
TRUSTS/'  IS  THE  MOST  INFAMOUS  AND  DEADLY 
OF  ALL  ITS  METHODS  OF  DESTROYING  THE  TAR- 
IFF DIKE,  LEADING,,  AS  IT  DOES,  TO  CONTEMPT 
FOR  PROPERTY  RIGHTS  ON  THE  PART  OF  THE  IG- 
NORANT, AND  OFFERING,  AS  IT  DOES,  TO  UttPRIN- 
CIPLED  POLITICIANS  AN  OPPORTUNITY  TO  BLACK- 
MAIL OUR  MOST  IMPORTANT  INDUSTRIES  UNDER 
COLOR  OF  PROTECTING  THE  PEOPLE  AGAtNST 
"PREDATORY  CAPITAL/' 

Your  Honors,  we  have  shown  you  some  of  the 
veils  of  mystery  with  which  the  wily  defendant, 
the  Importing  Trust,  drapes  its  attacks  upon  the 
savings-bank  fund  of  our  people.  We  have  ex- 
plained how  "scarcity  of  money,"  "over-produc- 
tion," "over-trading,"  "over-speculation,"  "corner 
in  gold,"  "high  price  of  gold,"  and  "bad"  or 
"short"  crops  are  held  up  to  explain  hard  times 
and  panics  which  result  immediately  from  a  "re- 
vision" of  the  tariff  dike.  But  there  is  one  other 
explanation  which  the  wily  plaintiff  makes,  both 


212 

for  panics  and  hard,  timeb  when  the  dike  is  down, 
and  for  high  prices  when  the  dike  is  up.    We  mean 
American  Production,  our  client,  burdened  with 
the  name  of  "the  trusts."     It  is  a  part  of  the  re- 
ligion of  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust, 
to  trace  directly  to  American  Production  every 
ill  to  which  this  country  is  heir.     This  has  been 
so  almost  from  the  very  day  of  the  landing  of  the 
Pilgrim  Fathers  at  Plymouth.     For  example,  it 
blames  present   high   prices  on   to   "the   trusts." 
But  since  our  tariff -dike  was  mended  in  1897  by 
the  Dingley   Law,   there     has  been  all  over  the 
world  a  general  rise  in  prices.     Now  there  is  no 
doubt,  your  Honors,  that  our  mended  tariff-dike 
caused  this  general  rise.    For  it  set  at  work  again 
at  good  pay  our  millions  of  wage-producers  and 
so  poured  a  great  flood  of  wages  upon  our  do- 
mestic market  in  a  constantly  rising  demand  and 
our  wave  of  prosperity  was  felt  "round  the  world," 
and    prices    began    to    rise   universally;    because, 
though,  while  acting  as  a  dike,  the  tariff  kept  out 
a  large  part  of  the  ocean  of  foreign  surplus  pro- 
ducts,  nevertheless,   wiiile  acting  as  a  dam,  the 
same  tariff  failed  to  keep  in  the  country  all  the 
wages  paid  to  our  wage-producers,  and  it  was  the 
money  of  our  wage-producers  going  out  in  return 
for  foreign  goods  coming  in    through    our   leaky 
dike,  which  caused  the  world-wide  rise  in  prices; 
and  yet  the  whole  thing  was  laid  to  the  American 
"trusts,"  otherwise  our  client,  American  Produc- 
tion, who  was  represented  as  "entering  into  com- 
binations in  restraint  of  trade"  and  "extorting" 
and  "exacting"  dreadful  prices  from  the  poor  peo- 
ple, every  mother's  son  of  whom  was  "extorting" 
and  "exacting"  a  higher  price  for  his  merchan- 
dise, namely,  the  labor  of  his  hands.     It  was  all 


213 

right  for  the  price  of  Avages  to  rise.  That  was 
approved  by  all  American  patriots.  But  when  the 
price  rf  other  things  rose,  it  was  "the  trusts"  who 
were  "extorting"  and  "exacting"  robber  tolls  and 
tributes.  Oh,  consistency,  where  is  thy  jeweled 
form !  Oh  justice  where  are  thy  scales ! 

But  the  point  is,  your  Honors,  that  the  "trusts" 
did  not  put  up  prices.  Prices  went  up  all  over  the 
world  and  from  the  same  cause,  namely,  the  in- 
creased demand  for  goods  because  of  the  increased 
wage-payments  to  labor.  Where  would  be  the 
equity  in  compelling  the  "trusts"  to  sell  their  goods 
cheaper  than  others  sold  their  goods1?  Prices  had 
gone  up  and,  for  what  they  bought  to  work  into 
their  goods,  they  were  compelled  to  pay  higher 
prices.  Who  should  say  that  they  had  not  the 
same  right  to  get  back  in  the  price  of  what  they 
sold  the  higher  price  they  paid  for  what  they 
bought? 

The  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  by  its 
learned  counsel,  also  says  that  the  "trusts"  sell 
abroad  cheaper  than  at  home?  Your  Honors,  since 
when  were  the  laws  repealed  which  gave  people, 
"trusts"  or  not  "trusts,"  the  right  to  sell  their 
property  at  any  price  they  pleased?  Are  those 
who  sneeze  when  the  Importing  Trust  takes  snuff 
willing  to  have  the  Importing  Trust  step  into  their 
private  affairs  and  fix  the  price  also  at  which 
they  shall  sell  their  goods?  This  criticism  of 
the  "trusts"  for  selling  where  they  please,  when 
they  please,  and  at  what  prices  they  please,  so 
long  as  our  laws  remain  unchanged,  is  criminal 
impertinence  which  every  decent  American  citi- 
zen should  resent.  There  is  one  thing  certain, 
your  Honors :  If  you  could  inspect  the  brain-cells 
of  people  who  take  kindly  to  this  arraignment  of 


214 

the  ''trusts,"  you  would  find  them  very  much  like 
the  brain-cells  of  many  other  people,  commonly 
called  "pickpockets,"  who  also  have  derived  the 
notion  from  some  source  that  they  have  a  right  to 
take  the  property  of  others  at  their  own  appraisal. 
But  about  this  "selling  cheaper  abroad  than  at 
home"  again:  Do  the  disciples  and  followers  of 
the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  imagine 
that  "the  trusts"  sell  abroad  at  lower  prices  than 
they  must?  What  is  it  that  has  so  suddenly 
breathed  into  the  monster  "trust"  the  soul  of  a 
Sister  of  Charity?  Surely,  we  should  clap  our 
hands  and  stamp  our  feet  with  joy  at  the  sight  of 
such  a  sinner  come  to  repentance  and  good  works. 
But  look  at  the  consistency  of  the  wily  plaintiff, 
the  Importing  Trust,  your  Honors!  From  one 
side  of  its  mouth  it  is  lashing  the  "trusts"  for 
selling  so  cheaply  abroad;  while  from  the  other 
side  it  is  barking  for  a  "revision"  of  the  tariff- 
dike  in  order  that  these  same  "trusts"  may  get 
cheaper  raw  materials  from  abroad  in  order  to 
sell  abroad  their  finished  products  even  at  lower 
prices  than  they  are  now  asking!  Isn't  the  fabric 
of  its  feigning  altogether  too  diaphanous1  for  suc- 
cessful deception,  your  Honors?  Isn't  this  a  Walk- 
into-my-Parlor-s'aid-the-Spider-to-the-Fly  s  /o  n  g 
which  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust  is 
piping  to  the  country,  your  Honors?  Look!  It 
says  the  dike  must  be  "revised"  because  the 
"trusts"  are  selling  things  too  cheap  abroad !  And 
it  says  the  dike  must  be  "revised"  because  the 
"trusts"  are  not  selling  things  cheap  enough 
abroad!  The  point  upon  which  the  wily  plaintiff, 
the  Importing  Trust,  forever  fixes  its  gaze  is  the 
tariff-dike  which  to  a  certain  moderate  extent 
only,  dams  out  of  the  country  the  goods  of  the 


215 

Importing  Trust;  and  for  every  ill  which  it  dis- 
covers to  be  hurting  the  dear  American  people  its 
prescription  is  "revision."  Isn't  the  wily  plaintiff 
too  thin,  your  Honors?  Now  your  Honors,  if  it 
were  any  of  the  people's  business  at  what  price 
any  citizen  of  the  United  States'  of  America  sold 
his  goods  either  at  home  or  abroad,  the  dear  peo- 
ple could  stop  the  "trusts"  from  selling  cheaper 
abroad  than  at  home  by  putting  an  export  tariff 
on  the  goods  thus  sold,  making  the  tariff  equal 
to  the  difference  between  the  price  at  home  and 
the  price  abroad  for  the  same  thing.  This  could 
be  done  without  smashing  the  dike  and  drowning 
the  country;  by  this  means  covetous  citizens,  who 
sell  their  labor  in  the  American  market  from  twice 
to  ten  times  as  high  as  they  could  sell  it  abroad, 
would  have  cooled  at  least  one  cause  of  their  palm- 
itching.  But,  after  all,  the  price  at  which  the 
"trusts"  sell  abroad  is  the  market  price  abroad 
for  such  things;  and  what  they  sell  at  home  is 
their  market  price  at  home.  If  it  is  wrong  for  the 
"trusts"  to  get  market  prices  abroad,  Is  it  right 
for  the  Importing  Trust  to  get  market  prices  here 
and  for  workers  who  join  the  Importing  Trust 
crusade  against  the  "trusts"  to  get  market  wages 
at  home?  Where  are  we,  any  way,  your  Honors, 
in  this  casuistic  confusion? 

One  point  more  as  to  selling  abroad  cheaper 
than  at  home,  your  Honors:  You  have  heard  of 
our  department  store  bargain  counters,  have  you 
not,  your  Honors?  Upon  these  bargain  counters 
are  odds  and  ends  of  goods  sold  far  below  their 
ordinary  price.  Are  these  bargain  counters'  un- 
huvful  and  is  it  wrong  thus  to  sell  when,  where, 
and  how  you  can  surpluses  that  might  otherwise 
remain  unsold?  Or  is  it  wrong,  your  Honors,  to 


216 

"clear  out"  a  summer's  stock  in  order  to  make  way 
for  a  winter's  display?  Should  we  be  bound  to 
the  same  prices  in  all  respects,  your  Honors,  and 
can  no  circumstances,  contingencies,  or  emergen- 
cies justify  one's  selling  to  Tom  cheaper  than  he 
already  has  sold  to  Dick  or  Harry?  Should  our 
department  stores  be  forbidden  to  have  "sales," 
during  which,  mayhap,  they  sell  the  same  goods 
to-day  for  half  the  price  of  yesterday?  Now,  your 
Honors,  if  it  is  lawful  for  our  "trusts"  thus  to  have 
"bargain  counters"  and  "sales"  at  home,  by  what 
rule  is  it  unlawful  for  them  to  have  "sales"  and 
"bargain  counters"  abroad?  What  is  it  that 
learned  counsel  for  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Import- 
ing Trust  remarks,  your  Honors'?  Ah,  he  says 
that  our  people,  having  nursed  these  "trusts"  to 
life  by  tariff  impositions,  have  a  right  to  insist 
upon  receiving  the  benefit  of  the  lowest  prices  at 
which  the  "trusts"  sell.  But,  your  Honors,  the 
learned  counsel  does  not  notice  the  fact  that  the 
tariff-dike  is  absolutely  impartial  and  shelters  not 
here  and  there  a  "trust"  but  the  whole  people; 
and  if  the  "trusts"  get  higher  prices  at  home  than 
abroad  it  is  because  they  have  to  pay  the  people 
higher  prices'  than  the  people  could  get  abroad. 
Isn't  it  fair  to  get  back  as  much  as  you  give?  If 
the  "trusts"  must  reduce  their  prices  to  where 
they  would  stand  if  there  were  no  tariff -dike,  ought 
not  the  people  to  reduce  their  wages,  too,  to  what 
they  would  get  if  they  competed  with  the  world 
outside?  Is  not  sauce  for  the  goose  also  sauce 
for  the  gander,  your  Honors? 

Right  in  connection  with  this  matter,  your 
Honors,  we  want  to  illustrate  to  you  once  more 
the  subtle  ways  in  which  these  wily  plaintiffs, 
the  Importing  and  Exporting  Trusts,  attack  tho 


217 

tariff-dike,  in  the  interest  of  their  respective 
pockets.  The  illustration  is  furnished  by  a  tariff 
deliverance  by  a  Congressman,  Hon.  Samuel  W. 
McCall,  who  is  put  down  in  the  World  Almanac 
as  hailing  from  Winchester,  Massachusetts,  born 
in  Pennsylvania,  educated  at  Dartmouth  College, 
by  profession  a  lawyer  and  in  politics  a  Republi- 
can. At  any  rate  he  is  a  firm  member  of  the  Im- 
porting Trust,  judging  from  his  article  in  the  Cen- 
tury for  October,  1907,  entitled  "Outlook  for  Tar- 
iff Reform."  In  that  article  he  says: 

"In  certain  articles  of  prime  necessity,  great  combina- 
tions have  destroyed  internal  competition" — 

a  statement,  to  begin  with,  your  Honors',  which 
is  absolutely  false.  There  is  not  a  single  "combi- 
nation" in  this  country  which  has  even  begun  to 
destroy  "internal  competition."  The  gentleman 
who  said  this  was  looking  through  Importing-Trust 
spectacles  colored  blood  red.  But  to  continue: 

"have  destroyed  internal  competition  and  with  refer- 
ence to  such  articles  the  tariff  wall  serves  the  purpose  of 
shutting  out  the  succor  that  might  come  from  abroad." 

Yes,  your  Honors.  We  believe  he  must  have 
been  educated  at  Dartmouth  and  have  drawn  in 
with  the  milk  of  his  alma  mater  great,  soul-filling 
drafts  of  inspiration  about  the  "markets'  of  the 
world."  Continuing : 

"Those  who  are  interested  in  that  sort  of  a  discourse 
may  discuss  the  genealogy  of  the  trusts,  but  the  man 
whose  pockets  the  law  has  just  helped  monopoly  to  pick 
cares  little  whether  the  tariff  is  called  the  mother  or  the 
grandmother  of  the  trusts." 

Said  bravely,  your  Honors.  But  we  think  the  World 
Almanac  must  have  omitted  one  McCall ;  for  there 


218 

seems  to  be  two.  This  could  not  have  been  Hon. 
Samuel  W.  McCall,  marked  "R"  and  said  to  hail 
from  Massachusetts.  The  one  who  wrote  these 
words  must  hail  from  Mississippi  and  be  the  con- 
gressional understudy  of  John  Sharp  Williams. 
Continuing : 

"It  matters  little  to  him  whether  the  law  creates  the 
implements  of  plunder  or  whether  it  seizes  the  victim  and 
delivers  him  over  bound  for  the  operation." 

This  sounds  more  like  a  Democratic  stump 
speech  against  protection  than  like  a  serious  con- 
tribution to  a  reputable  magazine,  your  Honors. 
We  have  all  heard  precisely  these  same  words  be- 
fore many,  many,  many  times;  but  from  people 
who  did  not  masquerade  either  as  Republicans 
or  Protectionists.  Continuing: 

"But  the  fact  cannot  be  doubted  that,  in  some  lines  of 
manufacture  in  which  we  are  able  to  compete  and  do 
compete  with  foreign  producers  in  their  own  or  neutral 
markets,  a  combination,  in  the  absence  of  internal  com- 
petition, is  able  to  require  the  American  consumer  to  pay 
the  full  foreign  price  with  the  duty  added.  In  such  a 
case,  the  simple  effect  of  the  duty  is  to  make  it  necessary 
for  the  consumer  to  pay  tribute  to  the  manufacturer." 

Your  Honors,  we  have  observed  that  this  man 
is  a  lawyer.  We  would  not  like  to  know  the  size 
of  the  retainer  paid  him  by  the  Importing  Trust 
to  plead  its  case  so  eloquently.  But  in  writing 
such  stuff  as  this,  he  smashes  himself  all  to  pieces 
as  even  a  pretended  protectionist.  He  evidently 
belongs  in  the  coterie  of  President  Roosevelt  and 
the  rest  of  the  German  Agreement  crowd.  He  does 
not  believe  in  living  up  to  the  very  weak  and  di- 
luted protection  promises  of  the  Republican  plat- 
forms. They  promise  the  American  workman  a 
tariff,  not  that  will  give  him  his  own  domestic 


219 

market  as  against  all  coiners,  but  one  which  will 
give  him  as  good  a  show  to  fight  for  what  is  al- 
ready his  own  as  the  alien  abroad  has  to  take  it 
from  him.     The  "duty"  was  promised  to  be  great 
enough  to  equal  the  difference  between  American 
and  foreign  wages.     That  is,  so  high  that  those 
who  bought  imported  goods  in  this  market  should 
pay  at  least   the   foreign  market  price,   and  the 
"duty  added."     This  is  what  our  brave  Congress- 
man kicks  about.     He  does  not  want  to  pay  the 
foreign  price  "with  the  duty  added."     Living  in 
America,  getting  American  fees  and  American  com- 
forts generally,  he  wants  to  buy  foreign  goods  at 
foreign  prices,  with  the  duty  "not  added;"  that 
is  \vith  the  dike  "revised"  and  such  as  he  allowed 
to  pay  others'  foreign  wages,  while  getting  Ameri- 
can   wages    themselves.      But    'our    Congressman 
will  say :    "You  don't  understand  my  point,  which 
is  that  the  manufacturers  are  our  protege's;  we 
make  a   tariff  for  them  to  work  behind  because 
they   can't  work  without  it.     We  give  them  the 
privilege  of  getting  higher  prices  here  than  they 
ran    abroad   and    they   ought   to   reciprocate   the 
favor  and  give  us  lower  prices  here  than  they  get 
abroad;  or,  at  any  rate  just  as  low  prices  as  they 
get    abroad.      But    now,    since   they   have   gotten 
cockey   and   are  charging  us   higher  prices  than 
they   got   abroad,    I   say  tumble  down   the  tariff 
dike  and  make  them  work  for  us  as  cheap  as  they 
work  for  foreigners  or  go  out  of  business."     Your 
Honors,  this  is  about  the  gist  of  what  our  Con- 
gressman would  say.    But  he  is  about  as  thick  as  a 
lath  and  as  broad  as  floor-crack  in  the  way  he  un- 
derstands this  tariff  question.    We  put  a  tariff  on 
foreign   goods  for  the  benefit  of  the  whole  coun- 
try and  as  a  general  principle,  not  as  a  favor  to 


220 

any  manufacturer,  either  in  Massachusetts  'or 
Mississippi.  We  want  done  here  the  business  rep- 
resented by  the  money  piled  up  in  the  mill.  We 
want  employed  here  the  people  employed  in  mak- 
ing the  goods  which  our  people  want;  and  we 
want  the  wages  paid  for  making  goods  of  that 
kind  spent  by  our  workers  right  in  our  own  stores 
here  and  not  by  alien  laborers  in  stores  abroad; 
and  because  some  American  manufacturer  sells 
his  goods  in  a  weak  foreign  market  at  a  weak  for- 
eign price,  we  don't  want  to  make  blithering  idiots 
of  ourselves  and  smash  all  this  American  business 
with  a  smashed  tariff  dike.  Nobody  but  a  vas- 
sal of  the  Importing  Trust  would  waste  his  breath 
with  any  such  drivel. 

And,  then,  our  Congressman  paints  himself  all 
over  "Free  Trader"  in  bilious  green  letters,  when 
he  utters  the  kind  of  nonsense  he  uttered  in  the 
October  Century.  If  he  believes  in  smashing  the 
dike  to  drown  out  the  fellow  who  can  sell  cheaper 
abroad  than  at  home  and  does  so  sell,  he  believes 
also  in  doing  the  same  thing  to  the  fellow  who 
could  sell  cheaper  abroad  than  at  home,  and  don't 
so  sell  for  fear  Congressman  McCall  will  "peach" 
on  him  and  get  Congress  to  rip  down  the  tariff- 
dike  and  drown  out  the  whole  country.  For,  as 
we  have  said,  we  do  not  take  it  that  Congress- 
man McCall  would  destroy  an  American  manu- 
facturer's American  market  just  for  revenge  or 
for  mere  punishment,  so  the  manufacturer  would 
not  do  it  again;  but  only  because,  in  his  opinion, 
selling  abroad  as  cheap  or  cheaper  than  at  home 
would  prove  that  the  infant  industry  had  grown 
up  and  no  longer  needed  the  nursing  bottle  of 
"Protection."  And  that  would  be  proven  just  as 
well  by  getting  President  Roosevelt's  Bureau  of 


221 

Corporations  to  look  over  the  manufacturer's 
books  and,  finding  that  the  manufacturer  if  he 
chose,  could  sell  abroad  cheaper  than  at  home, 
and  still  not  go  out  of  business,  as1  it  would  be 
proven  by  the  fact  that  he  had  already  done  so. 
So  that,  if  Congressman  McCall  is  not  talking  for 
a  fee  or  for  buncombe,  the  first  thing  he  will  do 
when  he  gets  the  congressional  floor  will  be  to  in- 
troduce a  bill  authorizing  and  directing  said  Bu- 
reau of  Corporations  to  sit  in  judgment  on  the 
profits  of  all  our  manufacturers,  to  the  end  that  a 
law  may  be  passed  stripping  of  tariff  protection 
all  manufacturers  who  if  they  wanted  to,  could 
sell  abroad  cheaper  than  at  home. 

If  he  does  not  do  this,  another  good  man  will 
have  been  snared  in  by  malefactors'  of  great  wealth 
or  by  the  conspiracy  of  rich  men. 

When  you  stop  to  think  of  it,  your  Honors,  the 
logical  result  of  Mr.  McCall's  reasoning  would  be 
to  take  off  the  tariff  on  everything  the  American 
producers  of  which  sold  any  of  it  at  all  abroad. 
Because,  to  sell  abroad,  whether  at  a  lower  or  a 
higher  price  than  at  home,  proves  that  foreign 
competition  is1  powerless  not  only  to  pay  ocean 
freights  and  take  our  domestic  market  from  us, 
but,  paying  no  freights,  to  keep  us  out  of  the  for- 
eign market.  Now,  Mr.  McCall  would  say,  "What 
is  the  use  of  your  dike  if  the  foreigner  can't  keep 
you  out  of  his  o\vu  market?"  Well,  we  export 
an  infinite  variety  of  goods  in  small  quantities, 
sweepings  of  our  shops,  etc.,  besides  some  things 
like  raw  cotton,  wheat,  apples,  provisions,  etc., 
etc.,  in  very  large  quantities,  and  if  we  followed 
Mr.  McCall's  rule,  the  tariff  would  come  off  of  all 
these  things  we  export,  no  matter  if  they  were 
only  sweepings  sold  at  auction  rates. 


Another  thing,  your  Honors.  Mr.  McCall  does 
not  claim  that  these  wicked  combinations  of  which 
he  speaks  in  the  October  Century  are  paying  their 
workers  only  European  wages.  The  fact  is  that 
they  are  paying  American  wages,  which,  in  some 
branches  are  from  three  to  four  times  as  high  as 
European  wages.  Now  what  Mr.  McCall  is  root- 
ing for  with  all  his  might  is  that  these  manufactu- 
rers should  have  an  opportunity  to  pay  foreign 
wages  on  goods  sold  in  this  market.  For,  take 
off  the  tariff,  and  our  manufacturers  would  cut 
down  wages  here  to  the  level  of  foreign  wages, 
plus  the  expense  of  getting  goods  from  abroad  to 
this  market;  if  they  did  not,  they  would  not  be 
business  men.  For  all  it  would  cost  them  to  get 
their  work  done  at  foreign  wages  would  be  those 
wages  plus  the  expense  of  getting  goods  here  from 
abroad.  Because  our  manufacturers  could  sup- 
ply their  trade  with  ready-made  goods  straight 
from  abroad,  either  from  their  own  plants  already 
located  others,  or  by  contract  with  foreign  manu- 
facturers. A  great  many  manufacturers  are  do- 
ing it  in  part  now.  And  this  accounts  for  our 
great  importations  of  partly  manufactured  arti- 
cles, which  is  only  a  partial  development  of  a 
business  which,  with  the  tariff-dike  "revised," 
would  find  its  full  development  very  soon.  We 
think  it  likely  that  Congressman  McCall,  in  writ- 
ing as  he  does,  is  pleading  the  case  of  certain 
Massachusetts  manufacturers  who  already  buy 
ready  made  in  Europe,  at  the  European  wage- 
level,  parts  of  their  product  which  they  assemble 
here;  but  who,  seeing  the  great  profit  in  thus 
iretting  a  part  of  their  work  done  in  Europe,  are 
anxious  to  have  the  dike  "revised"  so  they  can 
got  it  all  done  there,  and  resolve  themselves  into 


223 

mere  assembling  establishments,  or,  the  parts  also 
being  assembled  in  Europe,  into  mere  American 
selling   agencies    of   their    European-made   goods. 
Now,  the  only  thing  in  the  world  which  prevents 
this  thing  being  done  wholly  and  not  in  part,  as 
now,  is  the  very  weak  tariff-dike  which  we  already 
have.     This  illustrates  what  we  are  trying  to  im- 
press upon  this  Court,  and  that  is1  that  this  coun- 
try  is  and  always   has   been   exploited  by   these 
wily  plaintiffs,  who  are  mere  peddlers  after  all, 
having  no  love  of  country  or  home,  ready  to  be 
changed  from  Exporter  to  Importer  or  vice  versa, 
at  a  moment's  notice;  that  is,  from  a  builder  of 
American  factories  to  a  destroyer  of  American  fac- 
tories,  in  accordance  with   the  showing  of  their 
profit  and  loss  account.    They  are  two  practically 
dumb  and  dead  forces,  like  the  force  of  gravita- 
tion, arising  as  they  both  do  from  the  instinct  of 
self-preservation.     And  what  we  are  pleading  for, 
your  Honors,  is  that  the  same  force  which  drives 
these  wily  plaintiffs  into  such  tremendous  activity, 
piling   up   wealth,   as  it  does,  within   a   compar- 
atively narrow  circle,  simply    by    fomenting    the 
sentiments  and  prejudices  of  the  people  to  adopt 
s'uch    laws    as,    by   destructive    competition,    will 
segregate  our  national  wealth  from  the  workers, 
and  gather  it  in  the  hands  of  the  members  of  these 
wily  plaintiffs — that  this  same  force  which  works 
such  marvels  for  these  wily  plaintiffs'  may  be  har- 
nessed to  our  own  national  and  communal  reaper 
and  pile  up  wealth  for  the  widest  possible  distri- 
bution among  the  people  of  this  nation.     This  is 
what  would  happen,  if  we  raised  a  dike  so  high 
on  the  one  hand  and  a  dam  so  high  on  the  other 
that  no  American  jobs  would  leak  away  for  for- 
eign workers  to  do  to  the  lowering  of  our  wages, 


224 

and  no  American-made  goods,  the  natural  property 
of  those  who  made  them,  would  leak  away  to  for- 
eign countries,  to  our  impoverishment  in  goods 
and  the  increase  of  our  prices. 

It  seems,  your  Honors,  as  if,  after  all,  this  mat- 
ter of  punishing  manufacturers  for  selling  abroad 
cheaper  than  at  home  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
necessity  of  the  tariff  dike.  We  raise  tariff  dikes, 
not  for  individuals,  but  for  the  country  at  large. 
The  business  made  by  the  wants  of  this  country 
is  the  property  of  its  citizens.  It  is  yours,  your 
Honors,  and  ours.  To  destroy  the  dike  is  to  dis- 
perse this  business  abroad.  Whatever  any  one  or 
any  hundred  and  one  manufacturers  do  with  their 
goods  abroad  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  case.  We 
ought  not  to  destroy  our  country  to  get  square 
with  individuals  who,  it  is  rumored,  are  getting 
a  good  thing  by  manufacturing  here.  What  would 
you  think,  your  Honors,  of  the  Hollanders,  if,  be- 
cause some  provision-dealer  there  handed  across 
their  dikes  to  here  and  there  a  foreign  boatman  on 
the  outside  rancid  butter  at  lower  prices  than  he 
asked  for  good  butter  from  his  own  countrymen, 
the  Hollanders  should  avenge  themselves  by  tear- 
ing down  all  their  dikes  and  letting  the  sea  swal- 
low up  their  country.  Congressman  McCall  is 
too  absurd,  your  Honors.  He  ought  not  to  expect 
sensible  people  to  believe  for  a  moment  that  thb 
real  reason  why  he  wants  the  tariff-dike  destroyed 
is  to  get  square  with  the  wicked  manufacturers. 

Ah,  your  Honors,  counsel  for  the  wily  plaintiff, 
the  Importing  Trust,  asks  the  indulgence  of  the 
Court  to  make  another  interruption  of  our  argu- 
ment. He  says  that  while,  by  the  tariff-dike,  prices 
of  goods  here  are  hoisted  too  high  the  wages  of  the 
people  are  not  affected  by  the  tariff-dike  but  are 


225 

fixed  by  the  richness  of  the  country's  natural  re- 
sources and  the  ease  with  which  "raw  materials" 
can  be  worked  into  wealth.  He  says  in  this  regard 
America  has  no  peer;  and  just  as  long  as  the 
natural  treasures  of  the  country  are  "economically 
utilized  and  safe-guarded  from  vandalism"  the 
American  pay-roll  will  be  the  largest  in  the  world. 
Ah,  your  Honors,  if  "America  has  no  peer"  in  its 
stock  of  cheap  raw  materials,  why  does  the  wily 
plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  turn  heaven  and 
earth,  backed  with  all  the  might  of  the  wily  plain- 
tiff, the  Exporting  Trust,  to  have  the  dike  "re- 
vised/' so  raw  materials  can  be  admitted  free  for 
use  in  Exporting-Trust  products  in  "conquering 
the  markets  of  the  world?"  We  believe  we  have 
asked  this  question  before  and  do  not  remember 
having  an  answer  from  the  learned  counsel  whose 
interruption  we  are  now  replying  to. 

What  does  he  now  say,  your  Honors?  That  the 
"superiority  of  our  labor  and  its  greater  skill  and 
efficiency  supplement  our  raw  materials  in  es- 
tablishing a  pay-roll  without  an  equal  on  earth," 
and  a  pay-roll  which  is  in  no  wise  indebted  to  the 
"Chinese  Wall"  of  a  tariff  which  girdles  the  coun- 
try. That  is  distilled  honey  for  American  labor, 
your  Honors'.  With  our  skill  in  cerebral  inspec- 
tion, your  Honors,  we  verily  believe  that,  if  the 
learned  counsel  really  believes  that  statement,  we 
would  find  a  bunch  of  honey  bees  occupying  his 
bump  of  causality  instead  of  virile  brain-cells. 
But  he  does  not  believe  it,  your  Honors.  It  is  all 
in  his1  fee  and  not  in  his  head — this  argument 
which  simply  makes  ducks  and  drakes  of  the  old 
economic  law  relating  to  the  ratio  between  supply 
and  demand.  You  know,  your  Honors,  fully  as 
well  as  we,  what  that  old  law  is.  With  demand 


226 

and  supply  equal,  your  price  remains  the  same. 
With  demand  larger  than  supply,  prices  rise. 
With  supply  larger  than  demand,  prices  fall. 
That,  in  its  essence  is  all  there  is  of  it;  and  it 
is  just  as  true  as  the  multiplication  table.  Let 
two  customers  bid  for  the  same  supply,  and  the 
one  who  gives  the  higher  price  gets  the  goods. 
Prices  rise.  Let  two  sellers  offer  to  one  and  the 
same  customer  the  same  goods,  and  the  seller 
sells  who  will  sell  the  lower.  Prices  fall.  This 
rule  applies  to  men,  women,  and  children  selling 
their  labor  in  the  same  way  that  it  applies  to 
other  people  selling  goods.  And  yet  counsel  for 
the  wily  plaintiff  says  that  the  tariff -dike,  which 
prevents  the  American  supply  of  labor,  amount- 
ing to  about  20,000,000  hands,  large  and  small, 
from  being  increased  to  200,000,000  million  hands, 
without  any  increase  whatever  in  demand,  has  no 
effect  in  maintaing  American  wages!  We  do  not 
like  to  be  disrespectful,  your  Honors,  but  we  would 
much  like  the  opportunity  to  measure  our  learned 
brother's  head — that  is,  if  he  really  believes  his 
own  statement.  We  have  explained  to  you  before 
the  disparity  between  American  and  foreign  wages. 
Our  learned  brother  did  not  dispute  us,  when  we 
fixed  the  outside  world  at  wage-20  and  our  own 
inside  world  at  wage-100;  and  we  believe  that  he 
agrees  with  us  that,  for  all  practical  purpose  our 
figures  are  near  enough  to  the  fact.  Now,  your 
Honors,  what  would  happen  if,  at  the  door  of 
some  factory  of  ours  where  they  paid  their  work- 
ers $2  a  day  apiece,  some  cold  morning  there  pre- 
sented themselves  a  body  of  workers  as  to  num- 
bers and  skill,  exactly  like  the  workers  inside,  who 
offered  to  work  for  40  cents  a  day  apiece.  Suppose 
the  pay-roll  of  the  mill  were  now  f  200  per  day,  and 


227 

its  owner  could  hire  this  new  gang  of  men  at  a 
total  of  $40  a  day — by  what  rule  of  business  would 
you  say  he  went  by  if  he  did  not  go  to  his  workers 
and  say,  "Either  you  will  have  to  work  for  40c  a 
day  apiece,  or  I  must  hire  these  other  fellows  at 
that  price.  I  cannot  afford  to  lose  $160  a  day 
because  of  my  kindness  of  heart?"  But  put  our 
whole  country  in  the  place  of  the  single  mill, 
your  Honors,  and  let  the  mill-owner  be  repre- 
sented by  the  national  sentiment  which  has  con- 
sented to  dike  "revision."  Suppose  the  dike  has 
been  "revised"  and  no  longer  prevents  competition 
between  the  worker  at  wage-20  in  the  outside 
world  and  the  worker  at  wage-100  on  our  inside 
world.  There  is  now  no  sentiment  to  prefer  do- 
mestic workers  at  wage-100  to  foreign  workers  at 
wage-20;  for  the  tariff-dike  was  the  only  form  in 
which  the  people  expressed  that  sentiment  and 
they  have  now  done  away  with  the  dike.  So  now 
it  is  "Every  man  for  himself  ajid  the  devil  take 
the  hindmost!"  What  happens  your  Honors? 
Does  the  country  consent  to  buy  with  its  savings 
labor  at  wage-100  when  labor  is  offered  by  the  Im- 
porting Trust  in  the  form  of  all  kinds1  of  goods  at 
an  average  of  wage-20?  Well,  your  Honors,  in 
order  that  what  counsel  for  the  wily  plaintiff,  the 
Importing  Trust,  says,  could  be  true,  namely,  that 
wages  are  neither  increased,  maintained,  nor  de- 
creased, because  of  the  presence  or  absence  of  the 
tariff-dike,  it  would  be  necessary  that  the  nation, 
as  ono  mill-owner,  should  throw  away  the  differ- 
ence between  the  cost  at  wage-100  of  our  manu- 
factured goods,  say  f  17,000,000,000  (their  cost  to  us 
in  1906)  and  their  cost  at  wage-20  or  $3,400,000,- 
000,  that  is,  a  difference  of  $13,600,000,000.  Now 
curiously  enough,  if  we  buy  the  same  amount  we 


228 

bought  in  1906,  our  present  savings  bank  fund  is 
just  about  enough  to  buy  a  year's  supply  of  manu- 
factures at  cost-20.  We  might  live  a  year  with  the 
dike  down  and  enjoy  the  riot  of  cheapness  per- 
mitted by  the  incoming  of  foreign  goods  at  cost-20. 
But  after  that  we  wrould  have  to  work  or  starve; 
for  our  savings1  would  be  gone  into  the  hands  of 
the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust.  And  will 
counsel  for  the  wily  plaintiff  say  that,  facing  star- 
vation, our  wage-producers,  if  they  desired  to  get 
back  their  jobs  which  then  would  be  in  the 
possession  of  foreign  wage-producers  all  over  the 
world,  would  not  be  compelled  to  work  at  wage- 
20?  What  in  the  world  would  force  wrages  back 
to  their  former  level  here  but  a  new  tariff-dike 
which  would  shut  out  the  deluge  of  foreign  sur- 
plus products  and  so  reduce  the  supply  of  labor 
to  the  size  of  the  demand  here? 

Your  Honors,  we  appeal  to  you  whether  or  not, 
under  the  circumstances  we  have  described,  or 
even  if  the  outside  world  would  not  work  for  less 
than  wage-90  instead  of  wage-20,  there  would  be 
any  way  to  prevent  our  own  wrages  falling  to  wage- 
90,  except  the  erection  of  a  dike  damming  out 
wage-90  products. 

After  all,  your  Honors,  the  dike,  is  merely  a 
coffer-dam  in  the  great  world-wide  sea  within  which 
our  own  people  can  labor,  so  that  wages  and  prices 
may  be  fixed  by  the  ratio  of  local  supply  to  local 
demand,  without  reference  to  the  outside  world. 
Sweep  away  the  dike  or  the  coffer-dam  and  our 
wages  become  a  part  of  the  one  confluent  sea  wrhich 
seeks  the  same  level  the  world  around;  and  we 
would  eventually  be  forced  down  with  the  rest  of 
the  world  to  about  wage-20. 

And  wage-20  in  our  latitudes  would  not  sus- 
tain life. 


229 

We  think,  your  Honors,  that,  whatever  counsel 
for  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust  may 
pretend  to  the  contrary,  we  have  convinced  him 
that  the  wage-producers  of  this  country  have  noth- 
ing to  say  against  the  "trusts"  selling  more  cheap- 
ly abroad  than  at  home.  We  think  he  will  agree 
with  us  that,  if  the  "trusts"  get  higher  prices  here 
than  they  get  abroad,  the  workers  or  wage-produ- 
cers, or  in  the  language  of  the  learned  counsel  for 
the  wily  plaintiff,  the  "consumers,"  get  wages  as 
much  higher  than  the  wages  they  could  get  abroad 
as  the  "trusts"  get  prices  higher  than  they  get 
abroad;  and  that,  if  it  is  wrong  for  the  "trusts" 
to  get  higher  prices  at  home  than  they  get  abroad, 
it  is  equally  wrong  for  the  "consumers"  to  get 
higher  wages  at  home  than  they  can  get  abroad. 
And  if  the  tariff-dike  prevents  competition  from 
abroad  in  our  markets'  and  enables  the  "trusts"  to 
get  prices  from  the  "consumers"  higher  than  prices 
abroad,  the  same  tariff-dike  prevents  competition 
in  our  market  from  foreign  labor  and  enables  the 
"consumers"  to  get  wages  higher  than  they  could 
get  abroad.  But,  your  Honors,  why  should  coun- 
sel for  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  be 
thus  partial  in  his  championship?  Why  should 
he  be  more  indignant  because  our  "trusts"  sell 
more  cheaply  abroad  than  he  is  because  all  other 
countries  "trusts"  sell  more  cheaply  in  our  mar- 
ket here  than  they  do  in  their  own  domestic  mar- 
kets? For  that  is  what  they  do  all  around  the 
ring,  your  Honors.  Is  it  not  tit  for  tat,  your 
Honors,  and  is  it  not  right  that,  when  these  for- 
eign "trusts"  attacking  the  home  market  of  our 
"trusts"  with  lower  prices  than  the  foreign 
"trusts"  get  at  home,  our  "trusts"  should  balance 
the  account  by  attacking  the  home  markets  of 


230 

these  foreign  ''trusts"  with  lower  prices  than  our 
"trusts"  get  at  home? 

It  strikes  us,  your  Honors,  that  the  entire  ar- 
gument of  counsel  for  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Im- 
porting Trust  about  the  high  prices  of  our 
"trusts"  is  weak.  Who  are  these  so-called  "trusts," 
your  Honors?  Simply  the  whole  force  of  Ameri- 
can Production.  Together  they  make  up  the  en- 
tire fabric  of  industrial  activity  in  this  country. 
For  it  should  be  remembered  that  the  word  "trust" 
employed  in  the  sense  intended  by  the  Importing 
Trust  has  no  application  to  any  particular  in- 
dustry in  this  country.  The  term  is  one  of  odium 
selected  by  the  Importing  Trust  by  which  to  brand 
every  American  industry  whose  competition  it 
fears.  It  is  applied  without  discrimination  to  any 
branch  of  American  Production  which  the  Import- 
ing Trust  particularly  wishes  to  destroy.  The 
"trusts"  are  American  Production,  and  American 
Production  is  simply  the  whole  active  business 
and  industrial  country.  Therefore,  when  the  Im- 
porting Trust  accuses  the  "trusts"  of  raising 
prices,  it  accuses  all  the  industries  in  the  country 
of  raising  prices;  and  the  inference  is  that  prices 
are  raised  arbitrarily  from  pure  "greed"  as  the  Im- 
porting Trust  describes  the  asking  of  a  profit  on 
the  part  of  any  block  of  American  capital.  Now, 
your  Honors,  we  repeat  that  this  rise  in  price  has 
been  a  general  one;  and  we  inquire  whether  or 
not  it  is  sensible  to  suppose  that  the  American 
"trusts"  have  raised  prices  merely  for  fun  of  pay- 
ing the  high  prices  themselves.  For  all  prices  have 
risen;  and  the  "trusts,"  in  their  various  branches 
of  work,  are  obliged  to  pay  these  very  prices  them- 
selves for  the  materials  they  buy  to  make  up  into 
their  own  sorts  of  goods;  and  among  these  ma- 


231 

terials  so  raised  in  price  is  the  most  costly 
material  which  goes  into  goods,  viz.,  human  labor. 

A's  a  maatter  of  fact,  your  Honors,  those  who 
have  any  business  experience  at  all  know  that  the 
.ast  thing  any  American  producer  wants  to  see  is 
a  rise  in  prices.  That  means  a  fall  in  sales  and 
a  corresponding  fall  in  profits.  In  competition 
throughout  this  great  country,  a  rise  in  the  price 
of  any  article,  whether  of  food  for  the  wage-produ- 
cer or  material  for  the  property-producer,  brings 
uncertainty  and  perplexity  for  the  property-pro- 
ducer. He  does  not  know  how  his  comeptitors  are 
going  to  deal  with  the  matter  in  order  to  balance 
the  increased  cost  of  producing  without  handicap- 
ping their  goods'  with  a  higher  price  in  the  market. 
Instead  of  being  the  fiends  who  make  prices  high, 
your  Honors,  our  "trusts"  are  timorous  spirits  to 
whom  high  prices  are  vicious  demons. 

You  all  know,  your  Honors,  how  the  wily  plain- 
tiff, the  Importing  Trust,  breathes  discontent  into 
the  hearts  of  our  wage-producers  by  showing  sched- 
ules of  prices  which  have  risen  while  wages  have 
been  rising,  and  saying  that  the  rise  in  prices  more 
than  balances  the  rise  in  wages  and  that  the  wage- 
producer,  if  he  had  to  pay  merely  the  old  prices, 
would  be  better  off  with  his  lower  wages.  Your 
Honors,  this1  is  one  of  the  most  cruel  things  to 
which  the  Importing  Trust  is  driven  in  its  struggle 
to  block  American  Production.  Its  argument  is 
a  cheat.  It  quotes  the  percentage  of  increase  in 
wages  and  over  against  it  the  increase  in  prices; 
and  because  one  percentage  is  greater  than  the 
other,  tries  to  make  the  wage-producer  think  he 
is  being  made  poor  by  the  higher  prices.  The 
trick  of  which  the  Importing  Trust  is  guilty  in 
this  move  would  hardly  do  credit  to  a  patent- 


282 

medicine  vender  under  his  smoking  torch  in  a  pub- 
lic square.  The  hole  in  the  cheese  is  in  the  fact 
that  the  wages  at  their  higher  rate  apply  for  every 
hour  in  the  day  and  for  every  possible  working 
day  in  the  year;  whereas  the  higher  rate  for  food 
applies  only  to  three  meals  a  day  for  no  more 
days  at  the  higher  wages  than  at  the  lower;  and 
the  higher  rate  for  clothing  applies  merely  to  two 
or  three  suits  a  year;  and  the  higher  rent  only  to 
the  same  shelter  that  was  necessary  at  the  lower 
wages  and  the  shorter  time.  In  other  words,  your 
Honors,  the  same  items  being  considered,  from  the 
year's  total  earnings  deduct  the  year's  total  ex- 
penses, and  you  are  left  with  a  very  much  larger 
balance  for  the  savings  bank  or  for  comforts,  than 
you  were  left  with  when  the  old  prices  were  de- 
ducted from  the  old  wages.  It  is  a  very  cheap 
trick,  your  Honors,  which  the  Importing  Trust 
shows  us  here.  And  a  further  proof  of  its  wicked- 
ness is  the  fact  that  our  savings  banks  now  hold 
nearly  four  billions  of  dollars  saved  by  people 
working  at  the  wages  brought  by  the  mended  dike ; 
and  the  flood  of  savings  is  still  pouring  into  the 
banks  all  ready  to  flow  backwards  into  the  hands 
of  the  Importing  Trust  when  it  succeeds  with  dike 
"revision." 

Your  Honors,  we  know  that  the  wily  plaintiff, 
the  Importing  Trust,  has  a  favorite  spear  which 
knows  no  brother  in  saying  that,  if  you  shut  the 
country  up  with  a  very  high-tariff  dike,  you  aban- 
don all  our  people  to  the  rapacity — we  believe  the 
word  is  "rapacity,"  your  Honors — to  the  "rapacity" 
of  the  "trusts,"  because  they  have  already  throt- 
tled competition  and  are  "screwing  up" — auf- 
schmiiben,  we  believe  the  Staats  Zeitung  says, 
obeying  the  Gorman  steamship  lines  and  attack- 


233 

ing  our  dike — at  any  rate,  are  "screwing  up"  the 
prices  and  "exacting"  and  "extorting"  and  a  lot 
of  other  horrid  things  from  the  American  people. 
In  the  first  place,  your  Honors,  if  the  "trusts" 
are  breaking  any  law,  they  should  be  restrained. 
But  if  they  are  merely  selling  their  own  property 
at  their  own  prices,  the  same  as  you  and  we  would 
do,  your  Honors,  these  people  who  are  thus  at- 
tacking them  should  be  punished  for  sedition  and 
conspiracy.  For  we  should  never  forget,  your 
Honors1,  that  we  are  all  poor  creatures  who  have, 
at  the  very  best,  but  very  weak  if  not  wicked  stores 
of  brain-cells  and  that  the  "trusts"  are  no  more 
likely  to  get  our  money  by  making  prices  too  high 
than  we  are  to  get  the  "trusts'  "  money  by  making 
prices  too  low.  The  law  is  there  to  determine  this 
very  thing,  viz.,  whether  the  "trusts"  are  trying 
to  filch  our  property  or  we  are  trying  to  filch  the 
"trusts1' "  property.  The  "trusts"  are  just  as  good 
and  no  better  than  we  are.  We  are  just  as  bad 
and  no  worse  than  they  are.  When  it  comes  to 
talking  of  "greed,"  "voracity,"  "extorting,"  "ex- 
acting," and  such  things,  honors  are  easy.  Now 
it  seems  to  us,  your  Honors,  that,  under  these  cir- 
cumstances, we  and  the  "trusts"  might  better  call 
it  a  standoff.  That  is,  we  might  better  let  the 
"trusts"  alone  to  deal  with  their  property  in  the 
way  the  law  allows  and  not  cry  out  "extortionist" 
when  it  figures  out  that,  to  come  out  even,  it  will 
have  to  get  a  little  more  money  for  its  goods  to- 
day, with  its  running  expenses  higher,  than  it  did 
Yostorday,  before  the  rise  in  their  expense  account; 
and  we  will  pay  their  prices  or  not  as  we  please; 
and  we  dare  say  that,  in  exchange  for  this  cour- 
tesy on  our  part,  the  "trusts1"  will  be  quite  willing 
for  us  to  fix  our  own  price  on  jroods  we  sell  to 


them,  which  they  will  pay  or  not  as  they  please. 
For,  your  Honors,  we  each  have  the  privilege  of 
buying  the  other's  goods  or  leaving  them.  If  we 
don't  want  their  goods  at  their  price  and  they  will 
not  sell  at  our  offer,  we  can  leave  the  goods  in 
their  store;  and  if  they  don't  want  our  goods  at 
our  price  and  we  will  not  sell  at  their  offer,  they 
can  leave  the  goods  in  our  store.  There  are  plenty 
of  other  stores  for  us  and  for  them  to  buy  goods 
in,  the  Importing  Trust  and  its  list  of  American 
"trusts"  and  "combinations"  to  the  contrary  not- 
withstanding. Do  you  know  what  your  Honors? 
This  country  would  be  overturned  in  a  minute  by 
a  dollar  watch  if  the  prices  of  the  "trusts"  were 
not  prices  we  could  refuse  to  pay  and  still  live 
and  be  good  citizens  and  not  common  hoodlums, 
by  loud  bawling  trying  to  get  somebody  else's  pro- 
fit. 

The  fact  that  we  worry  along  so  prosperously, 
fill  the  savings  baks  so  full  of  our  savings,  and  our 
stomachs  so  full  of  sirloin  steak,  is  proof  that  we 
who  vilify  the  "trusts"  because  they  ask  a  price 
which  makes  it  as  profitable  for  them  to  sell  as 
for  us  to  buy,  have  a  bad  case  of  itching  palm. 
We  need  a  change  of  heart  and  a  dose  of  the  Ten 
Commandments ;  or  we  ought  some  day  to  land  in 
jail. 

Now,  your  Honors,  one  more  word  on  this  head. 
The  only  respectable  criterion  of  whether  the 
"trusts"  or  we  are  robbing  somebody  is  the  law 
of  the  land.  Before  we  howl  about  the  "trusts" 
robbing  us,  we  might  better  go  to  the  law  in  the 
case  and  see  whether,  in  the  penal  code,  what  the 
"trusts"  are  doing  is  described  as  "robbery."  If 
it  is,  we  should  file  our  complaint  with  the  dis- 
trict attorney  and  furnish  him  proofs.  Then  the 


235 

"trusts"  can  be  punished  in  due  course.  The  law 
will  test  the  question  and  classify  the  doings  of 
the  "trusts'"  as  they  deserve.  But  if,  while  the 
penal  code  contains  nothing  which  condemns  their 
doing's,  we,  without  making  any  orderly  complaint 
at  all,  go  up  and  down  the  land  roaring  out  against 
"predatory  wealth,"  "malefactors  of  great  wealth," 
and  "bad  corporations,"  charging  the  "trusts"  with 
"extorting"  and  "exacting"  things  which  they  have 
no  right  to,  we  convict  ourselves  of  manufactur- 
ing crimes1  to  fit  those  whom  we  wish  to  destroy 
in  the  public  mind,  of  playing  the  cheapest  kind 
of  politics,  and,  generally,  of  such  conduct  as  ex- 
poses us  to  the  suspicion  of  meaning  to  blackmail 
the  "trusts."  Especially  is1  this  true,  if,  occupying 
any  position  of  power,  we  have  it  within  our  reach, 
by  means  which  will  not  drag  us  into  the  matter, 
to  persecute  "trusts'"  who  refuse  to  be  "touched." 

Your  Honors,  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing 
Trust,  says  that  but  for  foreign  competition,  the 
kind  that  lines  the  pockets  of  the  Importing  Trust, 
all  the  producers  in  this  country  would  unite  in 
a  great  big  "trust"  and  choke  us  all  to  death  with 
high  prices.  That  sounds  either  like  what  some  fel- 
low says  who  either  knows  nothing  about  business 
or  who  thinks  those  he  says  it  to  know  nothing  about 
business.  But,  your  Honors',  those  who  know  about 
business  and  speak  to  others  also  supposed  to 
know  about  business,  say  it  is  not  because  the 
"trusts"  want  to  raise  prices  that  they  are  form- 
ed— the  "trusts'"  are  merely  large  corporations, 
your  Honors,  usually  made  by  consolidating  two 
or  more  smaller  ones — it  is  not  because  the  "trusts" 
want  to  raise  prices1  that  they  are  formed,  but  be- 
cause prices  want  to  raise  them  so  high  that  they 
would  be  ii  total  loss  if  they  rose.  In  other  words, 


236 

"trusts"  are  not  formed  until,  from  competition, 
conditions  are  such  that  it  is  only  by  consolida- 
tion and  the  reduction  of  expenses  by  the  eco- 
nomies1 which  come  from  buying  and  selling  in  the 
gross,  that  they  can  put  out  goods  at  prices  low 
enough  to  keep  them  in  business.  So  that  the  exist- 
ence of  "trusts,"  your  Honors,  is  a  sign  of  economy 
and  of  the  fact  that  the  public  is  getting  the  goods 
of  the  "trusts"  cheaper  than  before  the  "trusts" 
were  formed.  This  fact  is  notoriously  true  of  the 
celebrated  Standard  Oil  Company.  Their  pro- 
ducts are  retailed  at  prices  but  a  fraction  of  what 
they  were  before  this1  tremendous  system  was  form- 
ed and  all  its  thousand  economies  effected.  Kero- 
sene selling  from  12  to  16  cents  a  gallon  should 
make  any  one  blush  to  "kick"  at  the  Standard 
Oil  Company  as  a  monopolist.  Its  product  is 
carried  hundreds  of  miles,  highly  refined,  and  then 
sold  to  the  consumer  at  a  lower  price  per  gallon 
than  milk,  which  the  farmer  a  mile  away  brings 
you  daily. 

In  our  consideration  of  the  "trusts,"  there  is 
one  thing  to  be  remembered,  your  Honors,  and 
that  is  that  the  great  majority  of  them  are  very 
conservative  business  institutions  and  that  they 
represent  capital  secured  by  bonds  which  must 
earn  interest,  and  stock  upon  which  dividends 
should  be  paid;  and  that  they  are  limited  to  those 
methods  which  give  the  surest  returns  both  to  the 
bondholder  and  the  stockholder.  Now,  your 
Honors,  to  secure  a  proper  return  for  these  ob- 
jects, besides  a  sinking  fund  for  betterments  and 
repairs,  these  "trusts"  require  that  their  hold  on 
the  market  shall  be  steady.  Knowing  this  and 
what  it  means  to  pass  dividends  or  default  inter- 
est, these  "trusts"  have  a  sort  of  horror  for  shrink- 


237 

ages  in  sales;  and  the  thing  most  likely  to  shrink 
sales  is  a  higher  price,  which  often  means  a  shrink- 
age in  sales  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  increase 
in  price.     Perhaps  there  is  nothing  more  unjust 
than  to  charge  the  "trusts"  with  arbitrarily  rais- 
ing prices.     For   prices   are   never   raised,  except 
from  necessity,  arising  from  increased  cost  of  ma- 
terials, labor,  or  running  expenses;  or,  under  ex- 
traordinary circumstances  in  which  demand  un- 
reasonably and  perhaps  speculatively  outruns  sup- 
ply, to  check  gales  and  preserve  stocks  for  regular 
trade.     In  order  to  bring  proper  returns  on  the 
great  body  of  capital  tied  up  in  their  business, 
above  all  things  the  "trusts"  need  stability  and 
reliability  of  income;  and  these  things  never  could 
be  secured  by  constantly  sharpshooting  with  the 
public  in  the  matter  of  prices. 

Your  Honors,  we  should  not  forget  one  thing 
which  works  against  the  voluntary  making  of  high 
prices  by  the  "trusts" ;  and  that  is  that  prices  which 
leave  an  extraordinary  margin  for  "trust"  divi- 
dends, cause  competition  and  the  loss  of  some  por- 
tion of  the  regular  trade,  so  necessary  to  the  peace 
of  mind  of  the  "trusts,"  in  the  manner  just  de- 
scribed. 

What  does  counsel  for  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Im- 
porting Trust,  say,  your  Honors?  That  with  the 
tariff-dike  raised  high  the  American  "trusts"  throt- 
tle competition  within  the  country  by  freezing  out 
the  small  fry  and  buying  in  the  large  fry  among 
thier  competitors,  and  then  fix  prices  to  suit  them- 
selves? It  seems,  your  Honors,  that  counsel  for 
the  wily  plaintiff  will  not  take  our  theory  of  the 
deadly  effect  which  high  prices  have  upon  the  in- 
come of  the  "trusts."  Then,  your  Honors,  we  re- 
ply that  the  result  he  speaks  of  has  never  yet  fol- 


238 

lowed;  and  we  have  been  having  protective  tariff- 
dikes  in  this  country  for  a  hundred  years  and  more. 
It  is  not  true  to-day,  that  in  any  branch  of  produc- 
tion, the  "trusts'"  have  played  the  octopus.  Every 
"trust'*  in  this  country  now  has  strong  competition 
in  the  shape  of  effective  plants  entirely  beyond  its 
control  and  ready  to  take  advantage  of  any  mistake 
it  makes  either  in  production  or  in  marketing  its 
product.  If  the  "trusts"  were  making  a  greater 
profit  than  they  ought  to  make,  these  independent 
competitors  would  jump  in  and  force  the  "trusts" 
to  divide  profits  with  them  and  the  public. 

There  is  another  fact,  your  Honors,  which  the 
wily  plaintiff  tries  hard  to  keep  in  the  shade;  and 
that  is  that  the  tariff-dike  is  a  great  importer  of 
foreign  capital,  if  not  a  great  importer  of  foreign 
goods.  For  you  all  know  that  there  is  no  tariff 
on  capital,  on  the  one  hand,  or  on  labor  on  the  other. 
The  only  thing  the  tariff-dike  requires  is  that  capi- 
tal doing  the  work  of  the  country  shall  largely  do 
its  work  within  the  country  and  employ  the  labor 
found  in  the  country.  That  is,  that  a  fair  share  of 
the  property-production  for  the  country  should  help 
wage-production  within  the  country.  But  this 
market,  thus  partially  protected — for  it  is  by  no 
means  fully  protected,  as  our  rising  imports  prove 
—is  like  a  blackberry  bush  loaded  with  blackber- 
ries, such  as  we  found  in  the  pastures  when  we  were 
boys;  and  as  we  boys  all  flocked  to  the  same  bush 
to  get  all  the  berries1  we  could  before  they  were 
gone,  so  both  capital  and  labor,  the  one  anxious  to 
benefit  by  partially-protected  prices,  the  other  by 
partially-protected  wages,  come  flying  into  this 
country  to  produce  property  on  the  one  hand  and 
wages  on  the  other.  But  capital  conies  faster  than 
labor,  and  by  the  competition  of  the  inflowing  capi- 


230 

tal  '"the  trusts''  are  forced  to  lower  prices  much 
faster  than  labor,  by  the  inflowing  tide  of  immigra- 
tion, is  forced  to  lower  wages.  "Why,  your  Honors, 
capital  has  come  in  so  fast  in  this  way  and  has 
bucked  the  "trusts" — just  American  Production, 
your  Honors — so  strongly  that  it  is  startling  to  see 
how  in  this  country  prices  of  all  manufactured 
things  have  fallen  in  the  last  fifty  years.  Formerly 
England  was  a  monopolist  of  our  market  here  in  a 
thousand  articles1;  and  she  charged  us  very  high 
prices ;  but  the  tariff-dike  brought  capital  in  so  fast 
and  the  competition  between  American  plants  was 
so  sharp  that  now-a-days,  except  to  a  limited  extent, 
England  cannot  sell  here  the  kind  of  goods  which 
have  been  long  protected  by  the  dike,  because  the 
cost  of  passing  the  dike  cuts  off  her  profit.  On  the 
other  hand  our  wages  have  risen  very  much  over 
what  they  were  when  England  ruled  our  market; 
because  the  immigration  of  labor  is  comparatively 
slow  and  the  increasing  demand  for  labor  from  im- 
migrant capital  has  more  than  absorbed  the  immi- 
grant labor  supply.  Counsel  for  the  wily  plaintiff, 
the  Importing  Trust,  may  laugh  as  he  pleases  and 
say,  in  his  stage  whisper,  "Prices  fall  and  wages 
rise,  what  a  miracle!"  But  it  is  no  miracle,  your 
Honors;  it  is  merely  from  the  fact  that  the  tariff- 
dike  makes  such  strong  competition  here  that  prop- 
erty-producers bid  against  each  other  on  the  one 
hand  for  labor,  and  so  increase  wages;  and  on  the 
othsr  hand  for  customers,  and  so  reduce  prices. 
And,  as  we  have  often  said  before,  this  process  will 
keep  on,  your  Honors,  and  would  go  on  much  faster 
with  a  dike  which,  unlike  the  Dingley  fiasco,  really 
protected  the  market  as  a  whole.  But  the  good 
work  will  go  on,  if  the  Dingley  dike  is  not  "revised" 
downward  but  gradually  built  upward,  until  prop- 


240 

ertyi-prod'ucers   have  divided  between   the  public 
and  the  wage-producers  the  last  cent  but  the  one 
necessary  to  keep  property-producers  here  still  in 
business.     And  there  is  one  thing  to  take  special 
note  of,  your  Honors;  and  that  is  that  this  immi- 
grant capital  becomes1  fixed  here  in  plants  represent- 
ing thousands  of  millions'  of  dollars ;  and,  in  order 
to  save  it,  the  property-producers  will  not  run  away 
as  long  as  the  tariff-dike  returns  the  cost  of  their 
materials  and  labor  in  this  market,  together  with 
as  great  an  interest  on  their  invested  capital  as  they 
could  get  abroad.     For,  they  will  stand  by  their 
guns  as  long  as  their  plants  can  be  saved  as  going 
concerns  at  a  value  greater  than  the  loss  they  suf- 
fer from  low  prices  and  high  wages.     But  "revise" 
the  dike   downwards,  expose  them  to  competition 
with  cost-20  from  abroad  as   against   cost-100   at 
home,  and  the  loss  of  their  capital  fixed  in  plants 
will  be  small  as  compared  with  the  loss  of  their 
fluent  capital;  and  they  will  abandon  their  plants, 
gather  their  fluent  capital,  fly  to  lands  of  cost-20, 
go  into  business  there  and  send  their  wares  back 
here. 

But,  your  Honors,  it  does  not  seem  to  us1  rational 
that  our  people  should  overlook  the  fact  lying  right 
before  their  eyes,  that  the  tariff-dike,  not  shutting 
out  capital  but  shutting  out  goods,  is  the  greatest 
possible  importer  of  capital,  such  importation  being 
directly  in  proportion  to  the  effectiveness  of  the 
dike  in  protecting  our  home  market  from  foreign 
competition;  and  that,  in  this  way,  the  tariff-dike 
offsets  its  crime  of  being  "the  mother  of  Trusts," 
and  so  far  as  opportunity  to  "extort"  and  "exact" 
high  prices  is1  concerned  leaves  the  "trusts"  in  no 
better  shape  than  they  were  before.  Isn't  it  singu- 
lar, your  Honors,  that,  if  it  is  real  honest  in  want- 


241 

iiig  our  "trusts'"  to  have  plenty  of  competition,  the 
wily  plaintiff  should  so  hate  our  innocent  dike? 
Why,  your    Honors,  with   a   high-tariff   dike,  our 
"trusts"  are  sure  to  have  competition  with  all  the 
unfixed  capital  in  the  world,  down  to  the  level  of 
prices  where  our  property-producers  work  without 
salaries  and  merely  get  the  world-rate  of  interest 
on  their  plants'.     Then,  where  is  the  trouble  and 
what  is  it  that  torments  the  wily  plaintiff  so?     Sim- 
ply here,  your  Honors,  that  the  dike  strains  out  the 
most  of  the  goods  made  abroad  and  lets  only  capital 
come  freely  through.     If  the  capital  alone  comes 
through,  the   competition  with   our  "trusts"  is1  as 
great;  but  in  that  case  the  commissions  of  the  wily 
plaintiff  are  left  asoak  in  the  sea  of  foreign  surplus 
products  outside  the  dike  and  never  rind  their  way 
to  its  strong  box.     Just  a  little  inspection  shows 
that,  as  all  roads  led  to  Home  in  olden  times,  all 
execrations  upon  the  heads  of  the  "trusts"  no  mat- 
ter how  the  evil  thought  is  disguised,  lead  to  com- 
missions' in  the  pocket  of  the  wily  plaintiff. 

When  all  is  said  and  done,  your  Honors,  there  is 
a  certain  vulgar  lawlessness  in  all  this  sitting  in 
judgment  on  the  question  of  whether  somebody  is 
charging  too  high  prices.  We  think  we  have  shown 
you  where  it  conies  in  from  the  point  of  view  of 
legal  right.  But  when  it  is  placed  under  the  examin- 
ing glass  of  cold  business  analysis,  to  cry  down  an- 
other's prices'  on  the  ground  that  that  other  is  "ex- 
torting" and  "exacting"  a  higher  price  than  he 
should,  proves  to  be  simply  howling  to  make  some- 
body give  up  a  portion  of  his  profit  to  the  one  mak- 
ing the  kick.  Because,  your  Honors,  nobody  would 
buy  anything  at  all,  if  he  did  not  think  it  would 
be  more  profitable  for  him  to  buy  it  than  not,.  For 
in  order  to  make  a  trade,  two  minds  must  meet — 


242 

that  of  the  buyer  with  that  of  the  seller.  The  price 
fixed  between  them  must  be  that  at  which  it  is  more 
profitable  for  the  buyer  to  purchase  than  not ;  and 
at  which  it  is  more  profitable  for  the  seller  to  sell 
than  not.  Each  party  must  be  the  judge  as  to 
whether  the  trade  will  profit  him.  Now  the  fact 
that  goods  at  a  given  price,  whether  called  high  or 
low,  are  currently  salable,  is  proof  that  those  who 
buy  are  buying  at  a  price  which  profits  them;  and 
if  that  be  the  case,  when  a  person  sets  up  a  howl 
at  a  certain  price  because  he  thinks  it  high,  and  it 
is  yet  the  price  at  which  the  goods  currently  sell, 
what  he  is  trying  to  do,  your  Honors,  but  scare  the 
seller  out  of  his  profits?  We  think  this  is  a  correct 
analysis  of  the  whole  situation,  your  Honors.  The 
only  test  of  whether  a  price  is  too  high  is  whether  it 
is  so  high  that  the  seller  can't  sell,  there  being  in 
the  trade  at  that  price  no  profit  for  the  buyer.  And 
when  the  price  reaches  that  point,  the  final  glut  of 
goods  in  the  market  will  make  the  price  tumble. 
Goods  are  worth  what  they  will  bring.  To  com- 
plain that  prices  are  too  high  is  to  plead  the  baby 
act.  The  fact  that  you  buy  them  proves  that  they 
are  not  too  high  for  you.  It  amounts  to  this,  your 
Honors,  that  when  any  fellow  cries  out  against  the 
"trusts"  because  of  their  high  prices,  he  is  merely 
trying  to  get  the  public  to  increase  his  private 
profits  by  frightening  the  other  fellow  out  of  a  part 
of  his. 

And  it  is  just  so  with  regard  to  all  persons  or 
organizations  who,  to  smash  prices,  are  rooting  for 
tariff  "revision" ;  they  are  only  trying  to  make  the 
public  grind  their  private  axes.  For  they  are  mak- 
ing a  good  profit  already;  or  there  would  be  no  cur- 
rent market  price  of  the  sort  they  are  raving  about ; 
but  they  want  the  other  fellow  to  lower  his  price 


243 

in  order  that  their  own  may  be  raised.  That,  in 
a  pint  measure,  is  the  whole  philosophy  of  the  rage 
about  "extortions"  and  "exactions"  on  the  part  of 
the  "trusts.'7 

Your  Honors,  there  is  another  question  we  must 
ask  in  passing.  Why  do  not  all  our  clergymen, 
our  philanthropists,  and  our  honest  political  econo- 
mists throw  away  all  their  other  plans  for  the  better 
distribution  of  wealth  and  stand  for  work  at  liv- 
ing wages;  and  to  that  end  root  like  sensible  men 
for  a  dike  so  high  that  the  last  pennyworth  of  work 
to  be  done  for  our  people  here  shall  be  done  by  our 
own  wage-producers?  Why,  your  Honors,  in  the 
way  we  have  said,  from  competition  of  capital  with 
capital  for  the  market  on  the  one  hand,  and  for 
labor  on  the  other,  prices  or  cost  of  living  will  fall, 
and  wages,  or  the  means  of  living,  will  rise,  until 
practically,  in  proportion  to  their  work,  the  entire 
product  of  the  country  will  be  distributed  among 
our  workers.  Would  not  this  secure  that  wide  dis- 
tribution of  wealth,  your  Honors,  for  which  all 
these  good  men  sigh,  and  weep,  and  pray?  What 
other  channel  is  there  but  work  through  which 
wealth  can  be  thus  distributed?  If  it  were  distrib- 
uted arbitrarily  it  would  not  stay  put,  but  would 
find  its  way  back  again  into  the  hands  of  "certain 
malefactors  of  great  wealth,"  who  have  been  born 
with  the  faculty  of  making  and  keeping  money. 
But  when  people  get  money  by  work,  they  at  least 
have  some  idea  of  its  value.  And  with  such  a  sys- 
tem as  we  suggest,  confining  all  our  country's 
work  to  our  country's  workers,  more  and  more  of 
our  people,  from  decade  to  decade,  would  become 
educated  in  the  management  of  money  and  by  de- 
grees we  would  become  a  practically  homogeneous 
people,  where  everybody  would  be  well-fed,  well- 


244 

clothed,  well-housed  ian<3  we^l-entertained,  and 
diverted  from  the  sorrows  and  cares  of  life,  but 
where  nobody  could  live  without  work,  because  peo- 
ple would  be  all  so  well  to  do  that  each  would  have 
to  work  for  himself,  and  there  would  be  no  loafers 
and  lazybones  on  the  one  hand  or  servants  and 
human  chattels  on  the  other. 

Break  your  dike,  compel  us  with  cost-100  to  com- 
pete with  cost-20  and  fall  to  the  sea-level  of  wide- 
world  service,  and  the  rich  among  us  would  become 
richer  and  the  poor  poorer,  until  all  our  land  had 
been  left  with  a  few  grandees  who,  like  the  feudal 
lords  of  old  in  their  castles,  would  practically  own 
the  poor.  But  build  your  dike  to  heaven ;  shut  out 
the  degradation  contained  in  goods  the  price  of 
which  does  not  return  to  the  worker  the  fibre  that 
he  loses  in  his  work,  and  your  rich  will  become 
poorer  and  your  poor  richer,  until  wealth  has  been 
evenly  distributed  throughout  your  whole  popula- 
tion and  there  are  no  400  rotting  in  wealth  at  the 
top,  and  no  million  rotting  with  poverty  at  the  bot- 
tom; but  all  are  a  brotherhood  equal  in  bodies, 
minds,  souls,  and  estates. 

Another  thing,  your  Honors,  with  regard  to  the 
civilizing  effect  of  opportunities  to  work.  We  ap- 
peal to  the  followers  of  the  gentle  man  of  Galilee  to 
help  us  baffle  the  powers  of  darkness  which  these 
wily  plaintiffs  ha,ve  so  many  times  let  loose  upon 
us  and  which  by  means  of  tariff  dike  "revision" 
they  are  trying  to  let  loose  upon  us  once  more.  For 
nearly  two  thousand  years  the  Christian  clergy 
have  been  preaching,  and,  to  a  reasonable  extent, 
practicing  the  example  of  the  lowly  Nazarene  in 
doing  good  to  those  that  curse  them  and  despite- 
fully  use  and  persecute  them.  But  something  has 
been  lacking  in  the  program.  After  all  this  long 


245 

time  the  world  is  no  better  than  ever  it  was  before. 
There  are  more  heathen  in  the  United  States  to  the 
acre  than  there  are  in  darkest  Africa.  The  trouble 
is  that  all  this  talking,  talking,  talking  ends  only  in 
talking.  AYhat  we  need  is  good  habits.  Good  talk 
is  too  cheap  altogether.  Good  habits  are  the  most 
valuable  things  in  the  world.  And  good  habits  can 
only  come  from  plenty  of  well  paid  work.  And 
it  seems  to  us  that  we  remember  hearing  somewhere 
in  our  wanderings  an  expression  something  like 
this:  "Faith  without  work  is  dead."  We  do  not 
suppose  any  of  the  essay-readers  in  the  pulpits  will 
agree  with  us  that  we  heard  it  in  just  this  form. 
But  the  form  is  all  right.  Faith  without  work  is 
worse  than  unborn.  It  is  work  that  makes  habit. 
And  if  it  is  good  work  it  makes  good  habit.  If  the 
Christian  ministers  could  only  get  it  into  their 
heads  that  there  is  more  sound  conversion  in  an 
hour's  well-paid  work  honestly  done  than  in  a  year's 
sermonizing,  they  would  be  on  the  road  to  some- 
thing better  for  humanity  than  tent-meeting  re- 
vivals and  collections  for  the  missionary  field. 

Some  of  these  good  gentlemen  are  getting  some- 
thing in  their  heads  at  any  rate.  They  are  begin- 
ing  to  feel  that  there  is  a  screw  loose  somewhere. 
For  instance,  a  few  days  ago  Bishop  Ingram  of  Lon- 
don, then  at  Trinity  Church  in  New  York  City,  said 
this : 

"Have  you  ever  thought  why  there  are  any  rich  and 
poor  at  all?  That  is  the  question  I  have  had  to  face 
in  London.  They  have  asked  me  how  I  reconciled  the 
belief  in  the  good  God  loving  all  his  children  with  the 
wretched  million  in  East  London  who  seem  abandoned 
by  both  God  and  man.  I  had  to  face  that  question  and 
I  have  had  to  face  it  ever  since.  There  is  but  one  answer 
— the  rich  minority  have  what  they  have  merely  in  trust 
for  all  the  others.  Stewardship,  not  ownership,  is  God 'a 
command  to  every  one  of  us." 


246 

This  good  man  felt  there  was  a  screw  loose  some- 
where, but  he  put  his  finger  on  the  wrong  screw. 
Ownership  is  ownership,  not  "stewardship.''  The 
decent  poor  do  not  ask  alms,  but  work. 

And  here  is  another  good  fellow  hunting  for  that 
same  screw.  It  is  Kev.  Johnston  Myers,  pastor  of 
the  Immanuel  Baptist  Church  in  Chicago.  He 
says : 

"Sermons  and  discourses  from  the  pulpit  belong  to  the 
passing  order;  they  are  out  of  date.  Like  the  crusades, 
they  have  had  their  day  in  the  religious  world  and  now 
must  give  way  before  a  new  era  in  the  manner  of  getting 
people  into  close  association  with  the  church.  *  *  * 
Mere  preaching  ceases  to  hold  a  large  place  in  the  work 
of  the  church  nowadays.  People  are  tired  of  it.  *  *  * 
This  is  not  the  age  of  the  sermon.  Ours  is  the  age  of 
personal  work.  *  *  *  The  real  reason  sermons  are 
going  out  is  because  we  fail  to  get  definite  results  from 
the  sermon.  *  *  *  I  do  not  know  of  a  single  member 
of  the  church  made  through  the  conversions  of  "Gypsy" 
Smith,  who  held  a  revival  here  last  winter.  The  soul- 
winning  of  the  Twentieth  Century  must  be  by  personal 
work." 

And  he  missed  the  screw,  too;  but  by  a  narrow 
margin.  If  he  had  meant  "personal  work"  done  by 
and  not  for  the  sinner,  and  had  said,  "The  soul-win- 
ing of  the  Twentieth  Century  must  be  by  giving  the 
sinner  plenty  of  well-paid  work,"  he  would  have 
gotten  his  grip  on  the  very  screw  to  blame. 

Well,  your  Honors,  here  is  the  point:  Why  is 
not  a  high-tariff  dike  the  best  means  of  converting 
the  United  States  to  honesty,  temperance  and  broth- 
erly love?  Why,  your  Honors,  wickedness  flows 
from  brain-cells  which  were  arranged  in  accordance 
with  a  certain  environment,  and  wherever  that  cer- 
tain environment  is  present  that  same  arrange- 
ment of  brain-cells  follows,  and  we  say  the 
man  is  wicked.  But  make  such  an  environment 
that  the  wicked  arrangement  of  brain-cells  does 
not  follow,  and  the  same  man  is  said  to  be  good. 


247 

Now  the  environment  necessary  to  correct  an  ar- 
rangement of  brain-cells  which  makes  a  man  steal, 
is  one  where  it  is  just  as  easy  and  at  least  as 
safe  to  work  as  to  steal.  People  who  steal  be- 
cause they  love  stealing  are  very  very  few  com- 
pared with  those  who  steal  because  they  have  to 
in  order  to  live.  Now  from  our  long  observation 
of  the  tariff-dike,  we  believe  that  the  higher  your 
dike  the  lower  your  tide  of  crime;  and  the  lower 
your  dike,  the  higher  that  same  tide.  It  is  plain 
to  see  why  this  is  so.  Dike  out  of  the  country 
work  already  done  in  the  form  of  goods,  and  your 
balance  of  work  needing  to  be  done  in  the  coun- 
try is  larger.  There  are  more  jobs  for  our  work- 
ers and  Satan  does  not  find  so  much  mischief 
still  for  idle  hands  to  do;  but  on  the  contrary  the 
workers  find  more  ways'  to  earn  a  living  than  to 
steal  it,  and  they  earn  it.  Men  love  life  more  than 
laws  and  when  laws  get  in  the  way  of  life  they 
get  broken.  No  laws  would  get  in  the  way  of  life 
if  honest  labor  were  quite  as  well  rewarded  as 
necessary  crime.  Make  crime  unnecessary  to  life 
and  it  will  naturally  fall  off.  Now,  your  Honors, 
it  may  be  that  if  all  the  jobs  necessary  to  be  done 
for  us  were  divided  among  us  somebody  would 
still  be  without  a  job;  but  if  only  a  part  of  the 
jobs  ueessary  to  keep  us  were  divided  among  us 
and  the  rest  were  divided  among  job-hunters 
abroad,  as  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust, 
wishes,  it  is  certain  that  many  of  our  workers 
would  be  without  jobs,  and  more  stealing  would 
be  necessary.  Therefore,  we  repeat,  the  ther- 
mometer of  crime  in  this  country  should  fall  with 
a  high  dike  and  rise  with  a  low  one.  Now,  your, 
TTonors,  if  our  Christian  ministers  would  but  join 
us  against  the  Importing  Trust,  one  of  the  wily 


248 

plaintiffs  herein,  we  feel  certain  that,  at  last,  they 
would  be  on  the  right  track.  Prayer  is  a  good 
thing  in  its  way,  your  Honors,  but  it  is  a  pretty 
poor  way  to  form  good  habits,  which  simply  mean 
an  arrangement  of  brain-cells  making  our  actions 
automatically  good;  and,  in  making  good  habits, 
dike-building  would  beat  praying  to  death.  It  is 
our  firm  conviction,  your  Honors,  that  if  all  the 
jobs  necessary  to  be  done  for  us  were  distributed 
among  us  every  day,  there  would  be  enough  to 
go  'round  handsomely;  and  that  if  this  process 
were  repeated  from  now  on  forever,  the  people 
of  this  country  would  all  finally  become  so  good 
from  the  removal  of  temptation  and  the  substi- 
tution of  honest  habits  for  dishonest  ones,  that 
all  any  of  our  brotherhood  would  need  to  get  past 
St.  Peter  at  the  gate,  would  be  his  American  citi- 
zenship papers. 

Your  Honors,  this  matter  of  morality  in  the 
tariff-dike  seems  so  important  to  us  that  we  can- 
not leave  it  without  rubbing  it  in  well.  It  seems 
to  us  that  it  points  to  all  that  is  necessary  to  be 
done  to  reform  us  all  and  to  solve  every  problem 
of  commercialism  and  socialism  we  shall  ever  dis- 
cover. Why,  look,  your  Honors,  how  work  along 
our  pet  line  would  put  these  wily  plaintiffs  and 
the  socialists  but  of  business! 

On  the  one  hand,  the  old-line  socialists  say  that 
by  some  contrivance,  all  the  wealth  of  the  coun- 
try should  be  automatically  shared  equally  by  the 
whole  people.  On  the  other  hand  the  wily  plain- 
tiffs say  that  we  need  no  tariff  dike,  because  we 
have  such  a  lovely  climate,  such  a  heap  of  rap- 
turous soil,  such  "natural  wealth"  and  such  an 
ecstatic  genius  for  making  the  most  of  it.  It  is 
the  soil  and  these  other  jokers  that  give  us  the 


249 

trick.  It  is  these  dead  things  that,  almost  against 
our  will,  have  made  us  great;  and  they  will  give 
us  "the  markets  of  the  world"  without  a  tariff- 
dike  and  we  shall  all  be  happy.  But  we  say 
your  Honors,  that  our  old-line  socialists  and  these 
wily  plaintiffs  are  both  wrong.  It  is  not  the  soil 
that  has  made  us  great  or  its  equal  division 
among  us  that  will  make  us  greater  still.  Soil  is 
nothing;  sky  is  nothing;  rain  and  shine  are 
nothing;  free  division  is  nothing,  unless  a  man 
will  dig.  And  we  believe  in  making  it  an  object 
for  him  to  dig.  We  believe  in  conjuring  a  coin 
at  the  end  of  every  shovelful ;  but  we  would  make 
it  impossible  for  him  to  get  the  coin  unless  he 
dug.  We  are  not  the  other  sort  of  a  socialist 
with  his  equal  division  and  his  premium  on  shirk- 
ing. Men  should  dig;  but  we  would  make  digging 
a  hopeful  proposition  by  a  sky-high-dike,  with  its 
coin  at  the  bottom  of  every  digging;  and,  having 
done  that,  the  order  of  life  should  be  "Dig!"  If 
we  want  to  perpetuate  this  Republic,  we  must  dig, 
every  mother's  son  of  us.  That  is  what  makes 
mind  and  muscle  healthy;  and  nature's  law  is 
"Dig  or  die!"  But  the  difference  between  digging 
with  a  sky-high  dike  and  digging  with  no  dike  at 
all  would  be  this:  With  the  dike,  we  would  dig 
or  die.  Without  it,  we  would  dig  and  die.  Dig- 
ging with  a  coin  at  the  end  of  the  digging  would 
make  us  all  happy;  and  that  means  a  good  deal; 
for  although  some  say,  "Be  good  and  you  will 
be  happy,"  we  say,  "Be  happy  and  you  will  be 
good."  We  add,  "Give  men  good  work,  and  they 
will  be  both  happy  and  good."  For  without  re- 
gard to  "race,  color,  or  previous  condition  of" 
want  and  desperation,  the  very  great  majority  of 
men,  including  women,  prefer  hard  work  to  kill- 


250 

ing  and  robbing.  It  is  safer  and  saner.  It  means 
longer  life  and  greater  enjoyment  of  its  sweets. 
Men  are  natural  Epicureans.  They  want  the 
greatest  enjoyment  possible  to  the  square  minute. 
And  being  a  hunted  robber  or  assasin  does  not 
fill  the  bill.  We  believe  this  to  be  the  universal 
feeling.  What  men  want  first  of  all  is  good  work. 
A  number  of  years  ago  the  London  workless  poor 
formed  a  great  procession,  and,  tens  of  thousands 
strong,  marched  through  the  streets,  in  all  their 
poverty  and  rags,  hunger  and  hopelessness,  to 
give  the  English  Importing  Trust  an  object  les- 
son in  the  sort  of  goods  that  its  raids  on  the  Eng- 
lish work-supply  were  turning  out  from  year 
to  year.  The  Importing  Trust,  heard  that  these 
poor  men  and  women,  so  grievously  defrauded  of 
their  natural  rights,  were  going  to  make  a  demon- 
stration, and  some  of  its  wealthy  members  said, 
"Lo,  there  are  such  hard  times  in  London,  wo 
must  give  these  people  alms."  But  what  reply 
did  these  people  make?  Did  they  cry  for  the 
blood  of  those  who  had  sold  them  out  of  the  hope 
of  life?  Did  they  scream,  "Down  with  the  Im- 
porting Trust !  Death  to  the  rich !"  No,  bless  their 
true  hearts!  they  simply  inscribed  on  their  ban- 
ners, "We  do  not  ask  alms.  We  demand  work!" 
Was  not  that  grand!  They  merely  asked  to  have 
restored  to  them  their  right  to  work, — to  work 
for  Englishmen.  They  were  true  to  Anglo-Saxon 
instincts.  They  would  rather  work  than  beg,  bor- 
row, or  steal.  If  these  people  were  made  happy 
with  work,  they  would  be  good.  Some  of  us  are 
pretty  bad.  We  inherited  it.  Our  fathers  were 
bnd ;  thev  inherited  it.  Their  fathers  were  bad; 
they  would  lit1  and  cheat  and  kill  and  rob;  and 
thev  became  bad  because  it  was  be  flbad  OP  be 


251 

dead;  and  coffins  did  not  appeal  to  them.  But 
the  Importing  Trust  in  one  country  or  another — 
for  all  countries  have  Importing  Trusts —  went 
on  selling  so  much  domestic  work  at  auction 
among  outside  peoples'  that  our  wretched  grand- 
sires  never  could  struggle  to  their  honest  feet. 
So  they  got  the  habit;  and  their  dishonest  feet 
did  the  most  business.  And  so  some  of  us,  as  we 
have  said,  are  even  now  pretty  bad.  Some  of  us 
ought  to  be  hung  and  others  jailed  for  life,  in  or- 
der that  good  people  may  not  be  endangered  by 
us.  That  is  the  way  of  the  world.  Now  many  of 
us  have  brain-cells  all  arranged  for  badness;  and 
goodness  would  be  a  hard  proposition  for  us.  But 
in  time  the  proper  environment  would  rearrange 
our  brain-cells  in  the  line  with  what  people  now 
call  "goodness,"  or  "righteousness,"  as  Mr.  Roose- 
velt calls  it.  Now,  make  this  proper  environment ; 
soak  the  land  full  of  good  work  by  putting  the 
wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust  out  of  com- 
mission; and  by  sending  the  wily  plaintiff,  the 
Exporting  Trust,  to  the  rear;  crowd  it  full  of  do- 
mestic products,  good  things  to  eat  and  drink  and 
wear,  all  awaiting  us,  at  the  lowest  prices  pos- 
sible to  our  level  of  latitude  and  life,  and  we 
real  bad  ones  would  begin  to  work  some  of  the 
time,  even  if  we  stole  the  rest  of  the  time.  Our 
children  might  still  steal  some  of  the  time,  but 
they  would  work  most  of  the  time.  And  ten  to 
one  our  children's  children  would  work  all  the 
time  and  steal  none  of  the  time  and  perhaps  for- 
get the  art  of  stealing.  Then  the  good  work 
would  have  been  accomplished.  The  steady  pull 
of  an  environment  that  tied  honest  work  fast  to 
the  good  things  of  life  would  have  been  the  mas- 
ter, and  our  brain-cells  would  be  found  all  right 


252 

and  we  would  be  "happy  all  the  day."  Your  Hon- 
ors, put  these  wily  plaintiffs  in  chains  for  a  cen- 
tury; crack  the  back  of  foreign  trade;  give  us 
the  chance  to  do  all  our  own  work  ourselves1;  to 
make  all  we  have  and  have  all  we  make;  and  we 
could  celebrate  our  centennial  of  freedom  from 
these  wily  plaintiffs  by  burning  all  our  churches 
and  schoolhouses ;  for  they  never  would  be  missed; 
because  by  that  time  having  plenty  of  good  work 
would  have  made  our  people  so  happy  and  hence 
so  good  and  so  wise  that  to  send  them  either  to 
church  or  to  school  would  be  to  insult  their  good- 
ness and  their  wisdom. 

Yes,  your  Honors,  we  suspected  counsel  for  the 
wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  would  have 
something  to  say  just  about  now;  and  he  says 
that  our  delightful  little  digression  over  the  whole 
of  Christian  conduct  from  Palestine  to  the  Golden 
Gate  of  St.  Peter,  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  case; 
and  the  fact  still  is  that,  with  the  tariff-dike  keep- 
ing foreign  surplus  products  from  competing 
with  our  "trusts,"  no  matter  how  much  capital 
came  into  the  country,  it  would  all  have  to  join 
the  "trusts"  or  be  put  out  of  business;  and  the 
"trusts"  would  collect  from  the  people  by  high 
prices  what  it  cost  the  "trusts"  to  buy  up  this 
foreign  competition.  Your  Honors,  it  would  take 
a  power  of  money  to  buy  up  the  world's  unfixed 
capital,  rolling  in  here  to  share  our  market  with 
the  "trusts."  That  same  kind  of  capital  would 
keen  right  on  accumulating  in  the  world  at  large; 
and  the  world  at  large  is  a  pretty  large  world. 
Even  if  our  "trusts'"  represented  all  the  capital 
in  this  country,  which  they  don't,  by  a  long  shot, 
how  could  the  capital  of  this  country,  from  now 
on,  buy  into  silence  all  the  unfixed  capital  of  the 


253 

rest  of  the  world?  For,  if  profits  were  too  large 
here,  in  order  for  counsel  for  the  wily  plaintiff 
to  ring  true  in  his  statement,  that  is  what  our 
capital  would  have  to  do. 

At  any  rate,  your  Honors,  for  a  "trust"  to  buy 
up  competitors  is  to  add  just  so  much  to  the  cost 
of  its  plant;  and  the  ways  in  which  the  "trusts" 
can  get  interest  back  on  such  an  investment  are 
just  two:  First,  by  making  the  plant  purchased 
or  the  capital  absorbed  work  and  earn  its  own 
dividends;  second,  by  leaving  it  idle  and  raising 
the  price  of  present  output  to  cover  returns  for 
idle  capital.  In  the  first  case,  to  increase  supply 
without  increasing  demand  is  to  depress  price,  in 
the  interest  of  the  public.  In  the  second  case,  to 
increase  price  is  to  handicap  the  "trust"  plant  in 
its  quarrel  with  competitors  who  have  not  bought 
up  competition  to  the  same  extent.  The  absorbed 
plant  or  capital  becomes  a  dead  weight  on  the 
back  of  the  "trusts."  And  buying  up  competi- 
tion once  all  around  would  not  end  it.  In  fact, 
its  end  would  not  be  in  sight.  "Buying  up  com- 
petition," to  be  successful,  would  have  to  continue 
the  handicap  to  the  advantage  of  competitors 
which  would  become  larger  and  larger  all  the 
while.  In  short,  your  Honors,  those  who  know 
anything  about  this  trick  of  "buying  up  competi- 
tion" know  that  it  is  suicide  for  bona  fide  indus- 
try and  that  the  only  ones  who  ever  benefit  by  it 
are  promoters  who  dazzle  five  public  with  pros- 
pectuses, sell  out  their  stock,  and  stand  from  un- 
der the  crash.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  your  Honors, 
all  this  Importing-Trust  talk  about  the  "extor- 
tions" and  "exactions"  of  the  "trusts"  are  mere 
devils'  dreams  for  the  frightening  of  votes'  into 
the  box  of  the  Importing-Trust  presidential  and 


254 

congressional  candidates.  There  are  no  "trnsts" 
in  this  country  of  the  nature  and  power  described 
by  the  Importing  Trust.  They  are  bugaboos  in- 
vented with  an  eye  single  to  the  monoply  of  our 
market  by  goods  of  the  Importing  Trust.  All  the 
yarns  of  their  extortions,  of  their  combinations, 
of  their  nefarious  naughtiness,  and  of  their  satanic 
power,  are  pure  hobgoblin  tales.  The  public  not 
only  has  never  been  harmed  by  these  "trusts"  but 
there  is  not  a  single  instance  where  a  "trust"  has 
laid  hold  of  a  large  section  of  trade,  systematized 
its  production  and  the  distribution  of  its  pro- 
duct, and  enforced  the  economies  within  the  power 
of  large  capital,  by  which  the  public  has  not  been 
benefited  by  lower  and  steadier  prices,  a  more  re- 
liable supply  and  a  more  regular  distribution. 
As  to  what  dividends  these  "trusts"  earn,  it  is 
none  of  the  public's  business.  If  the  public  don't 
like  the  prices  it  pays,  it  can  build  a  "trust"  itself 
bigger  than  any  "trust"  ever  built  here  yet,  and 
have  the  product  for  the  bare  cost  of  production. 
Thus  to  compete  in  any  field  is  a  privilege  of  this 
free  country  where  there  are  no  government 
monoplies  .  And  as  to  what  profits  these  "trusts" 
make,  that  will  be  none  of  the  public's  business 
just  as  long  as  we  have  a  constitution  which  as- 
sures us  all  the  equal  protection  of  the  laws,  and 
will  not  let  us  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty,  or  prop- 
erty without  due  process  of  law.  These  "trusts" 
are  corporations;  and  in  the  eyes  of  the  law,  cor- 
porations are  simply  individual  persons  working 
together  instead  of  separately  to  secure  larger 
capital  and  to  have  perpetual  life,  a  quality  which 
IK  absent  in  partnerships  and  in  separate  individ- 
ual enterprises.  In  no  way  can  their  property  be 
confiscated  in  ways  which  would  not  apply  to 


255 

the  property  of  individuals.  We  may  be  sure, 
your  Honors',  that  all  laws  against  "combinations 
in  restraint  of  trade,"  as  well  as  all  those  which 
put  it  in  the  power  of  the  State  to  destroy  corpor- 
ations have  sprung  from  lawlessness  and  an  itching 
for  plunder  on  the  part  of  those  who  made  such  laws. 
There  is  not  now  and  never  has  been  any  reason  for 
such  laws,  except  the  itching  palms  of  people  who 
happened  to  be  in  a  position  to  make  laws  for  their 
own  pecuniary  profit.  But  none  of  these  laws  has 
ever  dared  to  give  the  public  any  greater  right  to 
regulate  the  profits  of  individuals  doing  business  as 
a  private  corporation  than  it  has  to  regulate  the 
profits  of  individuals  doing  business  separately. 
Even  the  itching  palm  has  stopped  there.  Now, 
your  Honors',  counsel  for  the  wily  plaintiff,  the 
Importing  Trust,  has  entertained  us  with  a  list 
of  what  he  is  pleased  to  call  the  American  "trusts" 
and  has  declaimed  against  them  as  "conspiracies 
for  extortions"  and  "in  restraint  of  trade."  As 
it  was  the  priestcraft  of  old  that,  to  destroy  a 
great  prophet,  inflamed  the  rabble  to  cry  "cru- 
cify him!",  so  to-day  it  is  this  wily  plaintiff,  the 
Importing  Trust,  that,  to  destroy  its  rival  in  this 
market,  organized  American  Production,  fires  the 
American  rabble  to  cry  out,  "Down  with  the 
trusts!  Down  with  the  oppressors  of  the  helpless 
'consumer' !"  This  wily  plaintiff,  your  Honors1, 
is  the  only  oppressor  in  sight  which  the  American 
people  have  to  dread.  Its1  influence  is  all-perva- 
sive. Its  bribe-givers  and  bribe-takers,  its  lobbies 
and  wire-pulling  cabals,  infest  this  country  like 
a  pestilence.  It  reaches  up  to  the  highest  planes' 
of  our  government  and  places  its  profane  hands 
on  the  most  sacred  offices  in  the  gift  of  the  people. 
It  fills  the  land  with  frenzy  against  its  own  Savior, 


256 

well-paid  employment  in  our  Holy  Temple  of  Pro- 
duction. It  swells  the  rabble  with  its  paid 
claquers,  who  scream  loudly  and  yet  more  loudly, 
"Crucify  him!"  and  in  order  to  enfuriate  the  peo- 
ple to  their  own  undoing,  it  invents  this  goblin's 
story  of  the  "trusts,"  and  repeats  it  so  solemnly 
and  so  frequently,  and  with  such  increasing  em- 
phasis, that  every  covetous  citizen  feels  his  palm 
begin  to  itch;  every  nere-do-well,  idler,  and  loafer, 
dissipated  back-number  and  has-been  in  the  coun- 
try, begins  to  pity  himself  the  more  for  his  bad 
case  and  lay  all  his  troubles  to  this  wraith,  the 
"trusts,"  which  has  no  more  real  existence  than 
the  malicious  animal  magnetism  of  Mrs.  Eddy. 
The  "trusts"  are  the  bear  story  of  the  vicious 
old  nurse  of  this1  young  Kepublic,  the  wily  plain- 
tiff, the  Importing  Trust.  But  a  lot  of  our  weak- 
lings believe  in  the  bear,  nevertheless.  Here  is 
one  of  them  writing  to  an  Importing  Trust  organ 
in  one  of  our  large  importing  cities: 

"But  the  chief  cause  that  impels  a  man  to  take  his 
life  is  [to  borrow  from  Robert  Burns]  "Man's  inhuman- 
ity to  man. ' '  Oppression  of  the  poor  by  the  rich,  the  en- 
slaving of  the  masses  by  the  select  few,  the  control  of 
the  country's  resources  by  the  small  minority,  and  the 
faulty  distribution  of  wealth.  It  is  lamentable  in  a 
country  like  ours,  with  its  widely  boasted  civilization,  its 
multiplicity  of  laws  and  institutions  for  the  protection  of 
the  weak  and  the  succor  of  the  oppressed,  that  95  per  cent, 
of  its  resources,  its  soil,  should  be  owned  by  5  per  cent,  of 
the  inhabitants.  These  few  capitalists  wielding  their 
enormous  power  in  an  arbitrary  and  over-bearing  manner, 
are  responsible  for  all  our  misery  and  wretchedness. 
Verily  the  wonder  01  it  all  is  that  so  few  commit  suicide. 
Life  under  such  conditions  is  hardly  worth  living;  it  is 
bound  to  be  wrecked  on  the  shoals  of  commercial  selfish- 
ness. What  makes  this  human  tragedy  all  the  more  dis- 
mal is  the  enormous  number  of  children  kept  at  work  in 
the  mills,  mines,  and  factories." 

Your  Honors,  there  is  scarcely  a  statement  in 
this1  deliverance  against  the  wicked  rich  but  what 


257 

is  as  far  from  the  truth  as  is  the  zenith  of  the 
celestial  sphere  from  its  nadir;  but  it  is  a  fair 
specimen  of  our  Importing-Trust  inflamed  popular 
mind  with  regard  to  our  client,  American  Produc- 
tion. 

There  are  no  rich,  as  a  class1,  no  poor,  as  a  class, 
and  no  masses,  as  a  class,  in  this  country.  The 
resources  of  this  country  are  not  its1  soil,  any  more 
than  its  people,  without  whom  the  soil  would  be 
worthless.  The  number  of  children  at  work  in 
factories,  mills,  and  mines  in  this  country  is  small 
compared  with  the  number  at  work  abroad,  popu- 
lation for  population;  and  the  industries  in  which 
our  children  are  at  work  are  those  wnose  goods 
sell  at  the  lowest  prices1,  largely  because  of  for- 
eign competition.  But  the  Importing  Trust  and 
its  retainers  in  their  campaign  for  tariff  "revi- 
sion," make  our  workers  compete  with  countries 
like  Japan,  whose  mills  are  almost  entirely  ran 
by  women  and  children  working  for  from  7c  to 
12c.  a  day  of  eleven  hours,  and,  by  the  help  of 
American  machinery,  doing  the  s'ame  work  which 
male  adults  do  in  this  country.  Such  writers  as 
this  think  we  have  a  "faulty  distribution  of 
wealth,"  because  money  is  not  distributed  gratis 
to  such  as  he.  You  have  to  work  for  money  unless 
you  inherit  or  steal  it.  But  that  does  not  seem 
to  suit  those  of  us  who  would  rather  s^renm  "Down 
with  the  trusts!"  than  build  a  higher  tariff-dike 
and  then  earn  money  and  save  it;  which  is1  the 
only  respectable  way  to  correct  our  "faulty  dis- 
tribution of  wealth."  After  all,  your  Honors, 
which  should  we  naturally  fear  the  most?  The 
crowd  who  have  no  property  to  be  injured  by 
anarchism  and  who  use  such  wild  language  in  de- 
scribing bugaboos  which  do  not  exist?  Or  the 


258 

"trusts"  who  give  hostages  lo  fortune  and  bonds 
for  their  good  behavior  in  the  billions  of  dollars 
worth  of  plants  in  which  they  employ  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  us?  If  "the  trusts"  steal,  or  mur- 
der, or  commit  arson  or  high  treason,  we  can  pinch 
their  property  very  quickly  and  make  them  pay 
for  their  crimes.  They  are  so  heavily  loaded  with 
immovable  property  that  they  can't  get  away ;  and 
there  seems  to  be  no  reason  for  this  hue  and  cry 
against  them;  this  frenzy  of  excitement;  this 
mounting  upon,  the  outer  wall  to  the  blare  of 
tocsin  and  trumpet;  this  hullabaloo  and  alarm  as 
for  the  repelling  of  a  sudden  and  slippery  inva- 
der. Thes'e"trusts"  are  tied  down  by  their  belong- 
ings. They  must  stay  put.  And  if  perchance  they 
have  broken  the  laws  so  that  it  hurts,  if  some 
one  who  is  hurt  will  make  the  hurt  known,  quiet 
and  orderly  process  may  be  begun  to  punish  the 
"wrongdoers"  and  "malefactors  of  great  wealth," 
without  inflaming  the  rabble  and  appealing  to  in- 
cendiary hate.  This  might  not  make  as  many 
votes  but  it  would  make  a  more  orderly  citizen- 
ship and  not  disturb  our  civilization. 

But  how  about  us  who  are  trying  to  excite  to 
insurrection  the  irresponsible  rabble?  If  we  suc- 
ceed and,  doing  the  work  of  the  Importing  Trust 
in  destroying  its  competitor,  American  Produc- 
tion, destroy  "the  trusts"  and  all  their  property, 
what  sort  of  hostages  to  fortune  have  we  given? 
Where  is  our  bond  for  damages  done?  Does  it 
not  seem  to  you,  your  Honors,  as  though  the  irre- 
sponsible hoodlum  running  with  the  gang  and 
breathing  threatenings  of  slaughter  against  "male- 
factors of  great  wealth,"  would  be  more  likely  to 
"extort"  and  "exact"  things  than  these  "male- 
factors of  great  wealth"  whose  tenure  to  property, 


of  which  they  have  a  plenty,  depends  upon  their 
being  quiet,  law-abiding  citizens?  At  any  rate, 
it  seems  so  to  us,  your  Honors. 

And  it  also  seems  to  us,  your  Honors,  that  a 
person,  saying  bad  words  about  the  "trusts," 
"predatory  wealth/'  and  "malefactors  of  great 
wealth,"  and  deciding  that  it  is  better  that  ninety- 
nine  innocent  colored  men  should  be  punished 
rather  than  that  one  guilty  one  should  escape, 
has  his  justice  and  equity  brain-cells  so  arranged 
that  his  word  that  the  "trusts"  are  such  bad  peo- 
ple should  not  be  taken  without  a  grain  of  salt; 
especially  when  he  has  the  ear-marks  of  a  chattel 
of  the  wickedest  trust  in  the  world,  the  combina- 
tion made  by  the  consolidation  of  these  wily  plain- 
tiffs. 

And  it  occurs  to  us,  your  Honors,  tha.t  we  do 
not  recollect  that  the  big  Homestead  riot  and  the 
riot  in  Chicago,  of  some  years  back,  and  the  riots 
in  other  cities,  where  property  wras  destroyed, 
were  led  by  "certain  malefactors  of  great  wealth" 
or  that  the  parties  pilloried  by  the  wily  plain- 
tiff, the  Importing  Trust,  as  being  the  leading 
spirits  of  our  American  "trusts"  applied  torches 
or  threw  bombs  or  anything  of  that  sort  during 
these  various  entertainments.  Rather,  as  far  as 
our  recollection  goes,  the  people  who  did  all  these 
things  were  a  part  of  the  holy  company  of  saints 
who  are  now  crying,  "Down  with  the  Trusts!" 
But,  in  a  case  like  this,  good  behavior  seems  to 
rais'e  no  presumption  in  favor  of  an  accused  per- 
son nor  bad  behavior  any  presumption  against  the 
accuser. 

Your  Honors,  the  only  possible  way  in  which 
the  nefarious  "trusts"  can  be  curbed  is  by  mak- 
ing a  law^  a  minute  to  fit  their  ever-varying  crimes. 


260 

Their  chief  crime,  just  now,  seems  to  be  that  they 
manage  their  affairs  so  wisely  that  these  Import- 
ing-Trust  banditti  think  the  profits  of  the  "trusts" 
too  large;  that  is,  too  large  for  those  whose  mid- 
night oil  has  made  them,  but  only  about  right  for 
these  pious  grafters  of  the  Importing  Trust  to 
take  away.  To  our  notion  no  cry  would  ever 
have  been  raised  against  the  "trusts"  if  the  Import- 
ing Trust  had  not  wished  to  destroy  American 
Production  and  seize  our  domestic  market;  and  of 
those  joining  in  the  cry  who  think  they  have  a 
real  grievance  against  the  "trusts',"  not  one  has 
any  idea  that  the  "trusts"  are  entitled  to  be  paid 
a  cent  for  their  services  in  effecting  such  organi- 
zations that  the  public  now  get  the  products  of 
the  "trusts"  for  half  the  price  formerly  paid  there- 
for; but  on  the  contrary  they  all  seem  to  think 
that  the  whole  earnings'  of  all  the  inventive  and 
organizing  brains  that  have  joined  in  such  sur- 
prising economies  belong  to  the  gentlemen  who 
have  been  set  on  fire  by  the  spoutings  of  the  Im- 
porting Trust  against  American  Production. 

In  looking  over  this  list  of  the  "crimes'"  of  the 
"trusts"  which  counsel  for  the  wily  plaintiff,  the 
Importing  Trust,  has  laid  before  your  Honors,  we 
are  reminded  of  one  crime  which  counsel  for  the 
wily  plaintiff  has  made  no  mention  of.  We  refer 
to  the  fact  of  the  employment  of  several  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  workers  and  the  payment  to  these 
same  workers  of  several  hundreds  of  millions  of 
wages  annually.  We  also  recognize  these"trusts" 
as  purchasers'  of  "raw  materials"  from  other 
American  industries  to  the  amount  of  several  hun- 
dreds of  millions  more  a  year;  and  a  rapid  calcula- 
tion shows  us  that  if  these  "trusts1"  suddenly 
ceased  thus  to  purchase  "raw  materials"  of  other 


261 

American  industries,  these  latter  industries  would 
employ  many  thousands  of  hands  less  in  turning 
out  those  same  "raw  materials."  We  also  recog- 
nize thes'e  "trusts"  as  drawing  upon  our  railroads 
for  freightings  to  such  an  extent  that  if  this  draft 
should  cease,  the  railroads  would  be  compelled  to 
discharge  as  superfluous  many  thousands  of  their 
men. 

Your  Honors',  we  think  we  can  give  these  peo- 
ple who  sing  "Down  with  the  trusts!"  cards  and 
spades  and  then  beat  them.  They  call  "crime" 
the  quiet  pursuit  of  every  industry  which  does 
not  voluntarily  divide  its  profits  with  them.  We 
will  not  use  "crime"  in  this  loose  way.  To  do  so 
makes  loose  morals  and  leads  to  myopic  ethical 
vision.  But  what  sort  of  an  act  is  it,  that,  without 
a  shadow  of  a  cause  that  would  hold  in  a  court  of 
law,  methodically  attacks,  decries,  and  embarrasses 
a  group  of  industries  such  as  is  represented  by 
these  "trusts,"  upon  whos'e  employment  hang  the 
lives  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  our  citizens  and 
the  prosperity  of  dozens  of  other  industries1  em- 
ploying thousands  more?  For  these  industries 
have  committed  no  crime  and  have  broken  no  law 
upon  which  their  detractors  can  place  a  finger. 
The  only  charge  made  against  them  amounts 
merely  to  a  declaration  that  the  property  of  these 
"trusts"  belongs  rather  to  those  who  denounce  the 
"trusts"  than  to  these  latter  who  have  earned  it 
by  superior  organization.  At  least,  your  Honors, 
this  is'  a  mooted  question.  If  the  chattels  of  the 
Importing  Trust  who  make  this  charge  really  be- 
lieve they  have  a  grievance,  let  them  lay  it  before 
some  court  having  jurisdiction  of  the  matter,  and 
then  abide  the  decision  like  decently  honest  men. 
But,  your  Honors,  the  onslaughts  upon  vested 


262 

constitutional  rights  by  these  chattels  of  the  Im- 
porting Trusts,  if  the  interest  of  the  latter  in  the 
ease  were  not  so  plainly  seen,  would  cause  dis- 
interested people  to  think  that  these  foamers  at 
the  mouth  and  frenzied  pounders  of  the  "trusts" 
desired  the  whole  case  to  be  settled  by  intimida- 
tion in  advance  of  court  proceedings,  without  a 
decision  upon  the  merits  of  the  case,  in  the  man- 
ner in  which  all  other  blackmailing  jobs  are  set- 
tled; and  this  all  for  the  reason  that  the  black- 
mailers knew  that  their  case  had  no  merit  and 
would  be  thrown  out  of  court  at  the  close  of  the 
reading  of  the  complaint. 

Your  Honors,  sober-minded  people  should  call 
a  halt  upon  this  lawless  denunciation  of  large  cor- 
pora taions  under  the  name  of  the  "trusts;"  this 
use  of  implied  threats  of  mob  violence,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  political  blackmail.  Especially  does  this 
concern  the  business  men  of  this  country,  your 
Honors',  whose  profits  come  over  their  counters  in 
the  money  they  get  for  the  goods  they  furnish  to 
the  public.  The  business-volume  of  any  country 
is  its  wage-volume;  and  the  wage-volume  coming 
into  their  hands  from  the  pay-rolls  of  these  "trusts" 
is  large  enough  alone  to  keep  the  whole  business 
of  the  country  on  even  keel.  Such  corporations 
should  be  encouraged  rather  than  persecuted  in 
behalf  of  the  Importing  Trust  and  the  substitu- 
tion of  imported  goods  in  our  markets  for  the  out- 
put of  the  "trusts."  Far  more  than  could  be  done 
by  small  organizations,  these  great  organizations 
insure  steadiness1  in  the  production  and  distribu- 
tion of  their  goods  to  the  public,  and  a  like  steadi- 
ness of  employment  to  their  workers;  and,  there- 
fore, an  equally  steady  and  reliable  demand  upon 
our  merchants  for  the  necessaries  and  luxuries  of 


263 

life,  practically  to  the  full  value  of  the  aggregate 
pay-roll  of  the  "trusts."  Surely,  your  Honors,  here 
is  a  great  force  for  steadiness  and  rhythm  in 
American  business  such  as  American  business  men 
should  not  ignore. 


XXII 

IN  THE  INTERESTS  OF,  RIGHTEOUSNESS,  THE  CHRIS- 
TIAN CHURCH  SHOULD  AID  IN  THE  EXORCISING 
OF  THE  DEVIL,  THE  IMPORTING  TRUST,  THE  OPERA- 
TIONS OF  WHICH  BREED  POVERTY,  VICE,  AND 
CRIME. 

Your  Honors,  we  cannot  turn  our  attention 
from  the  influence  of  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Import- 
ing Trust,  towards  the  degradation  of  all  our  peo- 
ple, without  recurring  again  to  what  we  think, 
irrespective  of  denomination,  is  the  duty  of  the 
Christian  church  in  the  premises. 

Faith  which  only  nails  credence  to  a  supersti- 
tion is  worse  than  dead.  But  if  it  is  a  step  to- 
wards nailing  a  brain-cell  to  a  good  habit,  it  is 
that  which  will  one  day  be  abundantly  justified 
in  her  children.  You  can  preach,  pray,  and  sing 
through  all  eternity  and.  if  you  stop  there  you 
will  never  save  a  soul,  for  you  will  never  reform 
a  sinner,  no  matter  how  much  you  convert  him 
to  faith  alone;  for  conversion  and  reformation 
arc  two  different  horses  and  unless  your  chin  mu- 
sic crystallizes  into  good  habits  in  the  sinner, 
you  might  as  well  save  your  wind.  When  a  sin- 
ner comes  to  the  altar  all  melted  to  tears  of  con- 
trition, you  may  think  you've  got  him;  but  with- 
out a  proper  readjustment  of  his  brain-cells  in 


264 

the  manner  we  have  just  described,  you  have  only 
converted  his  sinning  from  the  frankness  of  the 
brute  to  the  hypocrisy  of  the  human;  and  even 
that  poor  conversion  wears  thread-bare  very  soon. 
The  trouble  seems  to  be  that  our  evangelists  fire 
away  at  sin  and  sinners,  without  any  idea  of  what 
sin  and  sinners  are.  They  may  not  know  it,  but 
sin,  after  all,  is  merely  the  unlawful  satisfaction 
of  a  lawful  desire;  and  you  have  only  to  substi- 
tute a  lawful  satisfaction  for  the  same  desire,  and 
you  have  resolved  a  crime  into  a  very  proper  act, 
a  vice  into  virtue,  an  ugliness  into  a  beauty.  For 
no  natural  human  desire  is  bad  in  itself;  because 
all  human  desires1  are  the  urgings  of  nature  to- 
wards pleasure  rather  than  pain,  towards  life 
rather  than  death;  and  every  being  is  naturally 
entitled  to  live  not  only  without  pain,  but  also  with 
all  the  pleasure  his  sesnory  nerves  are  capable  of 
reporting  to  his  sensorium.  So  much  for  "sin." 
Now,  as  to  the  sinner,  be  is  not  such  a  fool  as  to 
be  "in  rebellion  against  God."  For  would  he  re- 
bel against  thunder  and  lightning;  against  earth- 
quakes, hurricanes,  prairie  fires,  and  such  things? 
Wouldn't  you  think  him  daft  if  he  did?  Well, 
God  is  something  like  an  earthquake  to  rational 
people.  You  can't  "rebel;"  you  can't  get  into  any 
revolt  about  the  situation.  If  you  do,  it  is  a  sign 
you  are  daft.  It  is  not  because  the  sinner  is  "in 
rebellion  against  God,"  or  "his  better  self,"  or 
such  nonsense,  that  makes  him  act  so.  It  is  be- 
cause he  is  a  piano  played  upon  by  rough  hands 
that  can't  get  music  out  of  him.  His  desires,  like 
blind  kittens,  for  their  mother's  breast,  are  reach- 
ing out  for  satisfaction,  and  they  are  laying  hold 
of  the  first  thing  in  reach  that  appears  likely  to 
fill  tho  bill.  Now  if  what  they  lay  hold  of  is 


265 

somebody's  watch,  people  call  his  pinching  it 
theft  and  him  a  pickpocket.  But  if  the  first  thing 
within  reach  is  a  good  job,  within  his  mental  and 
physical  powers  to  do,  and  he  does  it  and  for  do- 
ing it  gets  wages  equal  to  the  value  of  the  watch, 
had  he  stolen  it,  they  say  he  honorably  earned  his 
bread  in  the  sweat  of  his  brow;  and  they  call 
him  a  good  citizen.  Now  what  the  poor  fellow 
wanted  in  the  first  place  was1  neither  to  steal  nor 
to  get  a  watch ;  what  he  wanted  was  something 
to  eat,  Therefore,  what  we  stand  for  and  what 
we  call  upon  our  good  brethern  in  this  ministry 
to  assist  us  in  doing  is  the  casting  out  of  the  Im- 
porting Trust  and  making  honest  jobs  so  plenty 
in  this  land  that  when  a  poor  fellow  is  hungry 
he  can  pinch  good  wages  instead  of  watches  to 
exchange  for  bread  and  meat.  We  think  the  sal- 
vation of  every  man's  soul  depends  upon  his 
stomach.  The  stomach  is'  the  great  gateway 
through  which  all  insruction  in  piety  reaches  the 
goal  of  the  understanding.  Believing  a  dogma 
touches  no  hearts  and  saves  no  souls.  A  man  may 
not  believe  that  Jonah  swallowed  the  whale;  but 
if  he  does'  right  he  is  a  good  enough  Christian  for 
most  of  us  to  associate  with.  But  if  he  believes 
the  toughest  yarn  that  ever  a  sky-pilot  told,  and 
does  wrong,  most  of  us  gnther  up  our  skirts  when 
he  passes  and  put  our  silver  in  the  safe  when  he 
sleeps  at  our  house.  So  belief  does  not  go  very 
far  in  making  a  man  comfortable,  reforming  his 
ways,  or  filling  his  sad  stomach.  And  unless  you 
can  do  something  practical  for  a  man,  he  is  not 
goinjr  to  believe  in  vou  very  long.  It  is  because 
there  is  too  muoh  faith  and  too  few  works  which 
make  srood  solid  hnbits  in  righteousness  that,  as 
we  think,  the  Christian  churches',  if  thev  want 


266 

full  pews  will,  before  long,  have  to  adjourn  to 
the  ball-grounds  and  picnic  groves.  We  should 
think  a  church  choir  would  be  less  apt  to  waste 
its  accomplishments  on  Old  Hundred  between 
innings  at  the  Polo  Grounds  and  the  minister's 
preaching  and  praying  would  be  better  appreciated 
on  the  Coney  Island  beaches  than  in  his  own 
church  with  its  empty  pews  and  gloom  and  damp. 
The  proof  that  we  are  right  about  this  joining  of 
physical  good  to  spiritual  healing  as  the  way  of 
success*  to  the  Christian  Church  is  the  success  that 
various  religious  camps  have  already  had  march- 
ing that  way.  Look  at  the  Salvation  Army!  The 
fellow  who  helps  in  a  Salvation  Army  camp  gets 
a  good  breakfast  at  any  rate;  and  many  a  poor 
fellow  out  of  a  job  and  not  knowing  where  to  turn 
for  help,  has  been  soundly  converted  to  its  mili- 
tary life  and  meandering  ways  and  had  real  piety 
impressed  upon  him  by  an  environment  of  square 
meals  and  fair  to  middling  mattresses.  And  the 
Salvation  Army  flourishes  as  the  green  bay  tree. 
Then  they  tell  us  that  some  of  our  latter-day  mis- 
sionaries who  have  added  the  medicine  chest  to 
the  Bible  in  their  outfit  have  made  more  progress 
with  the  natives,  have  cheered  more  sad  hearts 
and  saved  more  souls  in  a  shorter  time  than  half 
a  regiment  of  miss'ionaires  who  only  had  and 
preached  their  glowing  faith  alone.  Then  look  at 
Mother  Eddy's  success!  Her  church  has  sprung 
up  like  a  mushroom  but  seems  to  have  the  life  of 
a  turtle.  And  what  is  the  secret  of  it?  Nothing 
in  the  world  except  the  fact  that  to  faith  in  the 
faith  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  sickness,  she 
adds  the  solid  promise  to  heal  all  your  diseases 
and  she  makes  you  think  she  has  done  it.  And  then, 
t.x>,  aftor  you  have  shown  your  faith  by  coughing 


267 

up  |300  she  adds  the  further  works  of  a  diploma 
which  sends  you  forth  with  her  blessing  and  with 
nothing  but  thoughts  in  your  medicine  chest,  to 
"heal"  at,  say  a  dollar  a  treatment,  and  by  the 
present  or  absent  route,  as  the  patient  prefers, 
and  as  your  own  convenience  may  require,  it  being 
sometimes  necessary  to  be  present  in  the  flesh  in 
one  sick  room  and  in  spirit  in  another,  at  one  and 
the  same  time  but  not  for  one  and  the  same  fee. 
This  contrivance  for  making  a  practical  use  'of 
faith  rather  beats  anything  we  had  in  mind  to  start 
with,  your  Honors',  but  it  illustrates  how  we  hope 
to  see  preaching  yoked  in  some  way  to  practice, 
such  as  would  follow  the  shipping  of  the  Import- 
ing Trust  to  the  Cannibal  Islands  and  keeping  our 
own  jobs  for  doing  by  our  own  people. 

To  sum  up  our  reflections  upon  sin,  your  Honors, 
since  every  natural  desire  has  a  natural  right  to 
be  satisfied,  it  is  only  in  the  means  or  measure 
of  that  satisfaction  that  sin  can  occur.  But  the 
moral  rule  is  that  no  one  should  satisfy  his  desires 
by  injury  to  the  person  or  property  of  another; 
and  it  is  this  injury  which  constitutes  all  there 
rationally  is  of  sin.  It  follows,  therefore,  that  the 
way  to  convert  a  sinner  is  to  make  it  easier  for 
him  to  satisfy  his  lawful  desires  in  a  lawful  than 
in  an  unlawful  way.  His  brain-cell  batteries  may 
bo  all  right,  as  they  stand;  but  their  wires  may 
bo  badly  crossed  in  passing  through  the  clearing 
house  of  reason  on  their  way  to  public  action; 
so  that  their  public  action  may  be  what  is  known 
as  "sin,"  or,  as  we  have  just  said,  some  injury 
to  the  person  or  property  of  another.  And  here 
vo  «foo  the  bearing  of  our  recommendation  that 
ilio  Tninortinir  Trust  should  be  sent  packing.  For 
in  order  that  tho  satisfaction  of  a  lawful  desire 


268 

itself  be  lawful  and  injure  neither  the  person  nor 
the  property  of  another,  the  sinner  must  have 
enough  property  of  his  own  to  satisfy  his  desires; 
and  seeing  that  the  great  majority  of  us  are  not 
born  rich  but  have  to  earn  what  we  have  in  the 
way  of  property,  in  order  to  change  people  from 
sinners  to  saints,  opportunities  for  getting  prop- 
erty by  labor  should  be  strewn  thickly  through 
every  community.  It  therefore  falls  out  that  em- 
ployment in  working  for  others  is  the  foundation 
of  morality  and  that  to  increase  such  employment 
is  to  increase  morality  and  vice  versa.  And  it 
is  on  this  account  that  we  want  a  high-tariff  dike 
with  its  flowing  instead  of  a  "revised"  tariff-dike 
with  its  ebbing  tide  of  morality;  and  that  we  be 
lieve  that  the  building  of  a  high-tariff  dike,  and 
the  confinement  of  home  demand  to  home  supply 
and  of  home  supply  to  home  demand,  is  to  build 
an  untakable  fortress  for  the  American  army  of 
righteousness. 

Yes,  your  Honors,  we  hear  the  wily  counsel  for 
the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  saying 
"But  you  never  can  get  the  Christian  ministry  to 
believe  that  morality  is  religion  or  that  it  will 
save  a  soul  without  belief  in  the  Apostles'  Creed." 
This  is  aside  from  the  question,  your  Honors,  but 
we  pause  long  enough  to  say  that  we  do  not  believe 
God  cares  what  a  man  thinks  as  long  as  he  is  a 
good  fellow,  good  to  his  wife  and  children,  good 
to  his  neighbors,  faithful  to  his  country,  and  to 
himself.  We  know  many  a  believer  in  lots  of  hard 
religious  stunts:  many  a  believer  who  believes  the 
Bible  is  insnired  from  cover  to  cover,  with  the 
cover  and  the  s?ilt  title  on  the  back  thrown  in,  but 
so  sour  and  uglv,  so  forlorn  of  face  and  so  crabbed 
in  disposition  that  we  could  not  live  with  him  and 


269 

we  do  not  believe  that  God  could  or  would  of  His 
own  free  will.  Everybody  loves  a  hymning  sin- 
ner better  than  a  howling  saint ;  and  a  wise  sinner 
instead  of  a  foolish  saint  is  immensely  to  be  pre- 
ferred as  a  friend  and  adviser.  If  belief  is  the 
article  that  we  have  seen  in  the  faces  of  some  peo- 
ple who  were  said  to  be  very  pious,  we  would 
much  prefer  it  to  vinegar  for  cucumber  pickles 
and  would  recommend  it  to  housekeepers  for  the 
preserving  season.  And  if  a  different  article  of 
faith  is  what  makes  some  faces  we  know  so  bright 
and  happy,  so  like  a  glimpse  of  the  angels,  even 
though  they  tell  us  the  belief  back  of  those  faces 
is  rather  risky,  we  must  confess  to  a  timid  long- 
ing for  that  brand  of  belief.  And  this  we  say  with 
all  due  reverence  for  the  faith  of  the  unhappy 
Christian  and  with  the  hope  that  when  he  wakes 
up  on  the  other  side  he  will  find  God  a  good  deal 
better  sort  than  some  of  His  alleged  people  here 
describe  Him. 

Not  only  in  the  matter  of  morality,  your  Honors, 
but  also  in  the  matter  of  education,  will  the  pres- 
ence of  plenty  of  opportunities  honestly  to  earn 
our  bread  send  us  singing  on  our  way.  The  rea- 
son why  we  are  compelled  to  support  schools  and 
universities  now  is  because  the  Importing  Trust  al- 
ways did  and  still  does  dissipate  among  the  alien 
races  of  the  earth  such  a  large  collection  of  our 
opportunities'  to  work  for  fair  wages  that  there 
are  not  enough  left  to  go  'round  in  the  way  they 
should  and  otherwise  would  and  finally  reach 
down  into  our  deepest  slums  and  gradually  wash 
them  clean.  But  build  the  tariff-dike  sky-high; 
keep  every  opportunity  to  earn  a  good  day's  pay 
right  at  home;  and  very  soon  the  people  would  be 
so  generally  well  to  do  that  they  would  have  their 


270 

own  ideas  as  to  the  best  way  to  educate  them- 
selves and  learning  would  be  placed  upon  a  bet- 
ter footing  than  it  now  is.  For  education,  like 
religious  belief,  is  of  no  account  unless  it  fits  the 
educated  one  to  make  a  better  showing  in  this 
world  than  he  could  make  without  it.  With  plenty 
of  good  jobs  in  sight  education  would  be  but  a 
tool  in  the  hand  of  the  worker.  Workers  know 
that  education  is  of  use  only  as  it  helps  them  to 
more  comfortable  lives;  and,  given  an  abundance 
of  employment,  they  would  provide  their  own 
schools.  In  a  few  words,  to  point  the  moral  to  our 
tale:  If  there  is  work  to  do  behind  a  tall  dike, 
education  will  follow  naturally,  by  the  initiative 
of  the  people.  With  no  work  to  do  behind  a  "re- 
vised" dike,  education  technical  or  otherwise, 
would  be  as  superfluous  as  a  tail  to  a  toad ;  and  that 
tail  would  soon  be  sloughed  off. 

As  we  have  hinted  in  regard  to  this  very  same 
matter,  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust, 
has  cute  ways  of  taking  attention  from  the  tariff- 
dike,  when  the  prosperity  of  the  country  is  slowly 
leaking  to  emptiness1  through  a  thousand  different 
breaks  which,  by  one  or  another  of  its  devious 
ways  in  politics  and  diplomacy,  the  Importing 
Trust  has  made  therein;  and  one  of  these  cute 
ways,  as  we  believe  we  have  also  already  hinted, 
is1  to  teach  our  people  to  hitch  their  carts  before 
their  horses.  One  of  these  carts  is  "technical 
schools"  or  "technical"  or  "commercial  education," 
and  "a  study  of  the  needs  of  foreign  markets  and 
the  best  methods  of  securing  their  trade."  And 
at  this  very  moment,  while  practical  eyes  should 
see  nothiim  but  our  domestic  market  slipping  from 
u.s  through  the  operations  of  the  Importing  Trust, 
the  wily  plaintiff  thrums  on  all  its  harps  the  song 


271 

''Technical  Education  the  Key  to  the  Markets  of 
the  AVorld !"  Your  Honors,  this  is  like  the  scheme 
of  the  robber  gang  who  hired  a  great  brass  band 
to  play,  just  after  nightfall,  patriotic  airs  in  the 
public  square  of  a  back-country  town,  and  rob- 
bed the  houses  of  the  innocent  citizens  while  the 
latter  were  away  at  the  entertainment.  It  is  like 
the  present  manoeuvre  of  the  German  Kaiser, 
tickling  American  tourists  under  the  chin,  while 
his  merchants  are  robbing  American  industry  un- 
der the  Koosevelt-Root  agreement.  You  can  afford 
to  feel  wondrous  good-natured  and  stroke  your* 
victim  very  gently  while  you  are  reaching  for  his 
watch — that  is  if  you  are  a  pickpocket.  We  should 
beware  of  free  treats  and  shows  in  the  public 
squares.  Thieves  are  not  far  away  from  the  spot 
where  some  kindhearted  man  is  giving  away  some- 
thing for  nothing. 

Isn't  the  wily  plaintiff  cute,  your  Honors?  By 
its  matter-of-course  manner  of  saying  that  our 
only  hope  of  glory  lies  in  foreign  trade,  hypnotiz- 
ing the  people  to  look  at  foreign  trade  as  the  great 
goal  of  all  effort;  and,  without  arousing  the  hyp- 
notic sleepers,  passing  to  the  suggestion  that  the 
only  way  for  our  people  to  be  industrially  great 
is  by  "technical  education ;"  ignoring  the  fact  that 
we  may  always  be  great  industrially  if  we  do  no 
more  than  our  own  work  through  the  sheltering 
power  of  the  tariff -dike,  to  which  end  no  "tech- 
nical education"  is  required  farther  than  we  are 
getting  by  actual  experience!  Yes,  your  Honors, 
the  wily  plaintiff,  with  studied  purpose,  ignores 
the  fact  that  the  higher  we  build  the  dike  the 
more  nearly  our  own  domestic  trade  approaches  in 
volume  the  entire  trade  of  the  world  outside;  and 
that  "technical  education"  follows  the  competi- 


272 

tion  between  bodies  of  capital  here  at  home  as 
naturally  as  the  invention  of  new  processes  and 
new  machines  follows  the  offering  of  additional 
profit  therefrom  in  a  secure  and  steady  market. 
Yes,  your  Honors,  to  make  "technical  education" 
the  condition  precedent  of  getting  a  market  is  to 
put  the  cart  before  the  horse.    With  no  market  in 
sight  and  no  apparent  field  for  the  profitable  use 
of  a  new  machine,  do  men  with  capital  go  ahead 
and  lay  out  large  money  in  experiments  and  con- 
trivings?     No,  your  Honors,  you  must  prove  to 
them  first  that  their  dollar  laid  out  in  machinery 
will  come  back  to  them  leading  a  part  of  another 
dollar  by  the  halter,  before  they  will  put  their 
hands  in  their  pockets  for  machinery.    And  it  is 
so  with  the  wage-producers  also.    Unless  they  see 
a  return  for  their  pains  awaiting  them  they  will 
waste   no   time   in    technical   education.     And   a 
level-headed  business  man  in  a  cost-100  country  sees 
no   certain   return   from   trading   with   a   cost-20 
world.     The  reason  why  technical  education  has 
advanced  in  Germny  is  because  Germany  is  a  cost- 
30  country  and,  by  technical  drill,  Germans  have 
merely  to  lay  aside  their  handicap  of  clumsiness 
in  order  to  bring  to  bear  against  our  cost-100  coun- 
try and  cost-50  Great  Britian  the  full  force  of 
their  lower  pay-roll.     The    right    scent    for   both 
Great  Britian  and  us  to  follow  against  German 
cheapness,  which  threatens  both  countries  like  a 
pestilence,  is  prohibitive  tariff-dikes.    But  the  wily 
plaintiff,  fearing  we  will  "catch  on,"  is  leading 
us  off  with  feverish  impressment  upon  the  false 
scent  of  "technical  education"  and  "study  of  com- 
mercial requirements  abroad!" 


273 


XXIII 

THE  PRETENSE  THAT  THE  "TRUSTS"  COULD  IN  ANY 
WISE  HARM  THE  PEOPLE,  EVEN  THOUGH  NO  GOODS 
OP  ANY  KIND  WERE  EVER  IMPORTED,  IS  A  GREAT 
FRAUD. 

Your  Honors,  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing 
Trust,  is  playing  Foxy  Grandma  with  us.  It  says 
if  we  don't  let  in  foreign  goods  to  compete  with 
the  "trusts,"  these  latter  will  swallow  us  like  alli- 
gators. But,  your  Honors,  the  "trusts"  are  never- 
theless composed  of  men  and  they  must  be  a  ma- 
jority of  us  to  do  it;  and  would  a  majority  of  us 
vote  that  we  should  swallow  us?  No  other  na- 
tion ever  swallowed  itself  in  that  way;  and  really, 
your  Honors,  we  do  not  think  our  nation  differs 
from  other  nations  in  this  respect.  And  then  when 
it  gives  us  advice  the  wily  plaintiff  may  be  mis- 
taken again  because  it  has  many,  many  times,  rec- 
ommended a  dose  of  foreign  production  for  our 
disordered  national  liver  and  after  taking  its  pre- 
scription the  nation  has  nearly  died  from  an  empty- 
stomach;  and  we  all  voted  that  a  heap  worse  than 
bad  liver.  Any  way,  your  Honors,  does  it  seem 
reasonable  that,  if  left  to  itself,  we  would  swallow 
us?  Because,  before  nations  were  formed,  there 
were  tribes,  and  we  never  heard  of  any  tribe  swal- 
lowing itself  in  this  way.  And  there  have  always 
been  "trusts"  even  in  savage  tribes;  and  we  never 
heard  of  the  "trusts"  in  any  tribe  swallowing  all 
the  rest  of  the  people,  as  the  Importing  Trust  says 
our  "trusts"  will  do  if  we  don't  watch  out.  Why, 
it  seems  to  us,  your  Honors,  that  if  there  had  been 
any  of  this  self-swallowing  virus  in  our  veins  we 


274 

would  have  all  swallowed  us  ages  ago  and  have 
left  by  this  time  nothing  but  the  animals  and  the 
fishes.  Instead  of  us  all  swallowing  us,  however, 
we  have  kept  right  on  ciphering  on  the  face  of  the 
earth,  as  we  believe  the  Good  Book  says.  And  now 
look  at  us!  We  are  a  billion  and  a  half  or  more 
and  still  coming ! 

Now  it  don't  seem  to  us,  your  Honors,  as  if  we 
had  left  a  very  good  record  for  the  health  of  any 
crowd,  call  them  "trusts"  or  what  not,  that  has 
tried  to  swallow  us.  In  the  first  place,  we  were 
a  lot  of  small  nations  called  "tribes;"  and  we  got 
tired  of  having  so  many  small  bosses  called 
"chiefs,"  and  we  just  stored  a  lot  of  them  in  the 
garret  and  then  had  only  a  few  big  ones  instead, 
which  we  called  "kings."  Then  we  got  tired  of  hav- 
ing so  many  kings  and  we  sent  a  lot  of  them  to 
the  scrap  heap  and  gave  the  job  of  several  of  them 
at  once  to  a  fellow  we  called  an  "emperor."  Then 
after  a  while  some  few  of  us,  at  any  rate,  got  tired 
of  the  royal  shooting  match  and  put  both  kings 
and  emperors  in  our  rummage  sale  and  elected 
Teddy.  This  don't  look  like  going  towards  the 
little  end  of  the  horn,  does  it,  your  Honors?  It 
don't  look  much  like  our  letting  any  boss  do  us 
much  harm  before  we  showed  him  the  door,  does 
it?  Now  it  don't  make  any  difference  whether  your 
boss  is  a  king  with  a  whole  lot  of  colored  goods  on 
his  back,  or  a  "trust"  or  anything  else,  the  temper 
of  our  blood  is  not  made  to  stand  any  back  talk 
for  long  from  anybody  whose  rule  is  against  fair 
play  and  not  according  to  contract.  You  see,  your 
Honors,  we  have  here  in  this  country  a  contract 
between  all  the  people  called  the  "constitution"  and 
according  to  that  every  fellow  has  a  right  to  earn 
all  the  money  he  can  and  when  he  has  earned  it 


275 

lie  has  to  give  np  some  of  it  in  taxes  for  schools 
and  a  few  other  things  and  the  rest  is  his  to  keep 
or  to  buy  something  with;  and  if  he  buys  some- 
thing, he  can  keep  what  he  buys  as  long  as  he 
pleases  and  then  sell  it  if  he  wants  to ;  but  he  need 
not  sell  until  he  gets  what  he  asks  for  it,  and  it 
is  nobody's  business  what  he  asks  for  it;  and  no 
matter  what  he  asks  for  it,  if  it  is  worth  more  to 
you  than  to  him  at  his  price  and  you  buy  it,  he  is 
not  "extorting"  or  "exacting"  more  than  he  has 
a  perfect  right  to  according  to  this  agreement 
called  the  "constitution."  Now  it  seems  to  us,  your 
Honors,  that,  as  long  as  these  "trusts"  are  only 
doing  just  what  the  agreement  gives  them  a  right 
to  do,  nobody  has  a  right  to  squeal.  We  have  no 
right  to  say  their  prices  are  too  high  any  more  than 
they  have  to  say  our  prices  are  too  high.  We  can- 
not take  their  things  by  force  and  pay  them  only 
what  we  want  to,  any  more  than  they  can  take 
our  things  by  force,  and  pay  us  only  what  they 
want  to.  If  this  way  of  doing  things  is  wrong, 
then  it  is  our  own  fault  for  making  such  an  agree- 
ment as  we  did  in  the  constitution;  and  the  way 
to  make  things  better  is  for  us  all  to  get  together 
and  make  another  agreement  or  constitution  in 
which  we  agree  not  to  be  "trusts"  but  that  each  of 
us  shall  work  alone  by  himself ;  and  after  that  new 
agreement  is  made  if  a  lot  of  fellows  get  together 
and  make  a  "trust,"  then  we  can  light  on  them 
and  take  their  things  at  whatever  price  wre  have  a 
mind  to  give.  If  this  was  all  agreed  to  in  this 
way,  then  the  "trusts"  would  have  no  kick  coming 
if  we  took  their  goods  away  from  them  and  gave 
them  anything  we  wanted  to  for  them;  but  until 
we  do  this  and  people  who  are  now  "trusts"  have 
had  notice  that  everything  has  been  changed  and 


2T6 

that  we  are  going  to  run  our  autos  on  a  different 
road  than  the  one  they  have  been  running  on  for 
a  thousand  years,  we  have  no  right  to  say  the 
"trusts"  "extort"  or  "exact"  from  us  when  they 
just  fix  the  price  they  want  to  on  their  goods.  Be- 
cause we  agreed  in  the  contract  that  they  could; 
and  if  we  kick,  we  are  a  lot  of  poor  hoodlums  and 
deserve  to  be  punished;  and  the  "trusts"  would 
only  give  us  what  was  coming  to  us  if  they  shut 
us  up  a  while  and  made  us  eat  the  constitution 
for  each  meal.  For  that  is  what  we  would  de- 
serve. We  are  chewing  our  own  words  when  we 
go  back  on  the  constitution  and  say  the  "trusts" 
must  sell  their  goods  to  us  by  one  rule  which  we 
make  as  we  go  along;  but  that  we  can  sell  our 
goods'  to  them  by  the  constitution  rule,  which  lets 
us  fix  our  own  price. 

Now  it  seems  to  us,  your  Honors  ,that,  before 
we  plead  the  baby  act  and  bawl  "No  fair"  and  say 
we  didn't  know  exactly  what  we  were  about  when 
we  made  the  constitution  contract,  and  blubber 
away  about  being  strangled  by  the  "trusts,"  unless 
we  break  the  dike  and  drown  the  whole  country  to 
get  rid  of  a  few  field-mice — before  we  make  a  holy 
show  of  ourselves  and  get  sent  to  the  insane  ward 
for  observation,  we  might  better  wait  until  this 
"trust"  strangulation  strangles  some.  It  has  not 
begun  yet,  with  our  savings-bank  deposits  running 
towards  four  billions  of  dollars  and  increasing  by 
the  minute.  But  when  it  begins  to  strangle  us 
some,  no  matter  how  little,  let  us  all  remember 
that,  in  this  country,  we  have  ballots'  that  are  bet- 
ter than  brick-bats.  Let  us  remember  one  thing, 
which  the  Importing  Trust,  through  its  red-hot 
newspaper  allies,  is  trying  to  make  us  forget,  and 
that  is  that  we  the  people,  by  a  majority,  are  the 


277 

bosses  of  this  country;  that  the  President  and  his 
cabinet  are  our  most  humble  servants,  and  that 
Congress  is  our  hallboy,  or,  at  any  rate  that  is  what 
we  hired  him  for;  and  if  either  of  these  servants  of 
ours  gets  a  swelled  head — and  they  some  times  do 
— and  do  not  do  what  we  want,  we  can  dismiss 
him  and  choose  another.  And  if  we  don't  like  our 
national  contract,  the  constitution,  if  there  are 
enough  of  us  who  think  the  same  way  about  it, 
we  can  scratch  it  out  and  write  a  new  one;  and 
we  can  make  it  just  to  suit  ourselves.  Now  in  this 
state  of  matters,  your  Honors,  the  fellow  who  goes 
up  and  down  the  country  firing  people's  ire  against 
"predatory  wealth,"  "malefactors  of  great  wealth'' 
or  any  group  of  people,  who  are  handling  their 
property  in  accordance  with  their  constitutional 
rights,  is  simply  a  public  nuisance  who  ought  to 
be  suppressed  for  breach  of  the  peace.  By  the  fact 
that  he  does  not  enter  complaint  against  them  un- 
der some  statute,  he  proves  that  these  people 
against  whom  he  declaims  are  obeying  the  laws. 
The  good  Lord  knows  he  would  "have  the  law  on 
them"  if  he  had  half  a  chance.  But  he  proves  that 
he  himself  is  the  real  malefactor  by  his  seditious 
talk  and  his  trying  to  make  the  morally  weak  tram- 
ple on  their  own  contract,  the  national  constitu- 
tion. The  thing  that  should  inspire  us,  your  Hon- 
ors, to  quiet  and  orderly  conduct  under  all  circum- 
stances, in  spite  of  the  ravings  of  "gluttons  of  the 
lime-light,"  is  the  great  fact  that  we  are  the  sov- 
ereign people  and  that  in  our  hands,  by  lawful  and 
decent  means,  with  "malice  towards  none  but  char- 
ity for  all,"  is  the  power  to  remedy  any  evil  what- 
ever that  can  be  remedied  by  human  hands.  The 
laws  are  ours,  based  on  our  constitution.  We  made 
them  all;  and  we  can  change  them  all  to  meet  any 
requirement  of  modernity.  The  Constitution  is 


278 

ours.  We  made  it  and  break  it  as  we  please  by 
amendment,  all  in  regular  course  of  law  and  of  jus- 
tice. Why  should  we  fume  and  fret,  your  Honors, 
against  the  "trusts"  or  "predatory  wealth,"  or 
"malefactors  of  great  wealth,"  or  "predatory  cor- 
porations," or  people  with  "swollen  fortunes,"  or 
anything  at  all?  If  the  doings  of  any  one  do  not 
seem  in  accordance  with  the  public  good,  let  us 
look  up  the  law  and  see  if  he  is  breaking  it.  If  he 
seems  to  be  breaking  it,  let  us  in  a  quiet  and 
orderly  manner  file  our  complaint,  without  fum- 
ings  and  threatenings  or  lime-light  pirouettings, 
gyrations,  or  gesticulations.  In  preserving  pub- 
lic order,  let  us  not  let  our  right  hand  know  what 
our  left  hand  doeth.  Let  us  do  good  by  suppress- 
ing evil  under  the  law  for  the  good  of  our  common 
country  and  not  for  personal  glory.  But  if  we 
find  on  inquiry  that  what  we  thought  was  an  evil 
was  nevertheless  according  to  law;  if  we  thought  a 
"trust"  was  asking  a  price  higher  than  we  thought 
we  could  afford  to  pay,  and  it  seemed  to  us  against 
the  law,  but,  on  looking  the  matter  up,  we  found 
there  was  no  law  to  prevent  the  "trust"  any  more 
than  an  individual  from  keeping  its  property  until 
it  got  its  price,  then  it  would  not  be  the  "trust" 
that  would  be  in  the  wrong,  but  the  law;  and  all 
our  red-fire  should  be  burned  at  the  impersonal 
law;  and  public  opinion  should  be  molded  in  such 
a  way  as  to  bring  about  an  amendment  to  the  con- 
stitution and  a  new  law  based  on  that  which  would 
compel  the  "trusts,"  and  us  and  you,  your  Hon- 
ors,— for  the  "trusts"  are  only  collections  of  people 
like  us, — to  sell  our  property  in  accordance  with 
some  new  rule  or  law  such  as  we  had  agreed  upon. 
But  we  have  no  right,  your  Honors,  to  froth  at 
the  mouth  and  veil  ourselves  hoarse  and  shake  our 


270 

fists  at  anybody  for  doing  exactly  what  the  law  al- 
lows him  to  do.  That  is  to  teach  the  people  not 
to  consider  laws  as  the  safeguards  of  rights ;  but  in- 
stead to  make  of  every  individual  his  own  law- 
maker; and  then  by  necessary  sequence,  his  own 
law-enforcer;  and  there  you  have  anarchy.  And 
that  is  just  the  direction  our  country  would  take, 
your  Honors,  under  the  unbridled  lead  of  our 
"Glutton  of  the  Lime-Light." 

But,  your  Honors,  not  even  our  "glutton  of  the 
lime-light"  trots  except  in  the  harness  of  the  Im- 
porting Trust.  The  fine  Italian  hand  of  this  wily 
plaintiff  can  be  seen  in  every  insurrectionary  at- 
tack on  American  Production,  whether  called 
"trusts,"  "criminal  corporations,"  "criminal  rail- 
roads," "predatory  capital,"  or  "certain  malefac- 
tors of  great  wealth."  Just  now  the  wily  plaintiff 
has  more  than  cause  to  be  content  with  the  "Gov- 
ernment" which  makes  German  Agreements,  Cu- 
ban Treaties,  and  schemes  for  free  trade  with  the 
world  through  the  Philippine  Hole  in  the  Wall. 
But  usually  when  the  Importing  Trust,  through  its 
newspapers,  alludes  to  the  "Government"  as  "ex- 
acting" taxes  from  the  many  for  the  benefit  of  the 
few,  it  means  that  the  tariff-dike  is  interfering  with 
its  profits  and  should  be  removed;  and  it  wishes 
to  give  to  ignorant  people  the  impression  that  the 
"Government"  here  is  some  despotic  thing  against 
which  we  should  revolt,  as  foreign  countries  revolt 
against  kings  and  their  divine  rights ;  and  that  the 
tariff-dike  is  simply  a  king's  extortionate  taxation. 
It  seems  strange  that  even  the  wily  defendant 
should  thus  speak  of  our  "Government;"  because 
"Government"  with  us  is  a  structure  made  by  the 
people,  and  one  which  from  time  to  time  and  with- 
out revolutionary  fury,  the  people  remodel  to  suit 


280 

themselves.  But  we  imagine,  your  Honors,  that 
the  wily  plaintiff,  in  thus  referring  to  the  "Govern- 
ment" as  an  alien  antagonist,  distinct  from  the 
people,  and  representing  a  royal  line  that  preys  on 
the  people,  is  depending  upon  the  fact  that  a  large 
number  of  us  have  come  so  recently  from  govern- 
mental oppression  in  the  old  country  that  we  don't 
quite  understand  the  new  situation  and  do  not 
realize  as  we  should  that  we  ourselves  are  the  "Gov- 
ernment," and  therefore  the  habit  of  responding  to 
the  word  "Government"  with  a  rush  of  hate  to  our 
heads  is  still  with  us;  and  the  wily  plaintiff  im- 
agines that  the  quickest  way  of  making  us  aid  the 
wily  plaintiff  in  any  plot  for  the  rape  of  this  coun- 
try's savings  account  is  to  give  out  that  it  is  only 
operating  "agin  the  Government." 

In  all  its  machinations,  and  especially  in  order 
to  rouse  the  blind  fury  of  our  people  to  their  own 
undoing  and  to  its  vast  enrichment,  in  applying  the 
word  "trust"  to  American  Production,  the  wily 
plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust  has  shown  itself  of 
great  resourcefulness  and  great  cunning;  but,  your 
Honors,  it  is  not  the  means  to  the  end  which 
stamps  this  wily  plaintiff  with  its  true  character; 
it  is  rather  the  end  itself  and  the  repeated  and  piti- 
less accomplishment  of  and  profiting  by  the  accom- 
plished end.  Your  Honors,  no  army  of  trained  cut- 
throats at  any  period  of  the  world's  development, 
when  sacking  and  burning  cities  in  its  path,  has 
ever  shown  more  love  of  havoc  than  has  this  wily 
plaintiff,  in  the  starvation,  despair,  and  untimely 
death  under  which  its  success  against  our  life-pre- 
serving tariff-dike  has  so  often  buried  our  devoted 
country.  Not  once  alone,  your  Honors,  but  many, 
many  times  has  this  wily  plaintiff  scarred  our  land 
as  bv  fire  and  left  behind  on  everv  hand  worse 


281 

things  than  smoking  ruins  of  happy  homes.     Lan- 
guage would  fail  to  describe  the  lively  horrors  of 
its  every  triumph.     It  is  not  bloodthirsty,  your 
Honors.     It  does  not  slay  for  the  horrid  lust  of 
killing.     It  slays  for  the  same  reason  that  pirates 
have  always  taken  human  life — for  plunder.    And 
its  descents  upon  our  homes  are  always  made  with 
the  same  swoop  and  swirl  with  which  the  cattle- 
stealers  in  olden  times  raved  down  from  the  moun- 
tains to  the  smiling  plains,  only  soon  to  be  off  and 
out  of  sight  with  their  spoil  until  flocks  and  herds 
had  been  replenished  and  the  lowland  farms  were 
left  unguarded  once     more.     The     wily     plaintiff 
knows  that,  with  its  breath  of  destruction,  it  can- 
not rule  us  for  long;  because  if  it  did  we  should 
be  utterly  consumed  and  leave  no  sign.     It  knows 
that  we,  a  cost-100  country,  cannot  live  long  with- 
out a  high  tariff-dike  against  a  cost-20  world.    The 
most  it  hopes  for  is  to  fool  our  people  to  smashing 
the  dike,  through  which  it  can  rush  like  a  Niagara 
flood,  soak  up  our  savings  and  all  the  wealth  that's 
movable  and  be  gone.     It  knows  that  after  each 
raid  upon  the  dike;  after  each  all-destroying  de- 
luge   and    exterminating    inundation    of    foreign 
goods,  the  people  always  have  and  always  will 
awaken  to  their  horrible  folly,  throttle  all  opposi- 
tion, and  build  the  dike  anew  and  higher  than  ever ; 
but  for  the  momentary  plunder,  with  the  purpose 
of  scooping  up  a  small  portion  of  the  wasting  heap 
of  our  wealth  unseated  by  the  deluge,  it  fills  this 
land  periodically  with  its  sonorous  crusade  against 
the  American  "trusts"  and  ends  by  the  destruction 
of  billions  of  American  property.     It  is  the  looter 
who  sets  fire  to  the  King's  palace  in  order  to  run 
away  with  the  crown  jewels  under  cover  of  the 
smoke.     It  recks  not  of  the  destruction  of  life,  by 


282 

sheer  starvation  and  despair,  which  its  success  is 
sure  to  bring,  and  which  it  has  itself  often  seen 
follow  its  forays  upon  our  tariff-dike.  For  neither 
the  wail  of  the  orphan,  the  sob  of  the  widow,  nor 
the  groan  of  the  strong  man  who  sees  his  wife  and 
children,  from  a  want  he  cannot  meet,  fading  be- 
fore his  eyes  into  the  very  shadow  of  the  grave,  has 
pathos  to  check  the  wily  plaintiff  in  its  work  of 
death ;  and  unheeding  the  havoc  which  it  unfailing- 
ly scatters  over  this  fair  land  of  ours,  in  a  country 
where  there  are  no  classes,  it  continues  from  gen- 
eration to  generation  inflaming  the  people  by  its 
appeal  to  class  hatred,  in  which  it  preaches  a  gos- 
pel of  enw  and  covetousness,  which,  for  hypocrisy 
and  hellishness  would  even  make  Lucifer  redden 
with  shame. 

Your  Honors,  who  shall  have  aught  of  reproach 
for  us  if  we  declare  ouce  more  that,  judging  from 
their  contempt  of  the  lives  of  men,  these  wilv  plain- 
tiffs are  the  wickedest  "trust"  in  the  world! 


XXIV 

THE  WILY  PLAINTIFF,  THE  IMPORTING  TRUST,  IS  A 
TEACHER  OF  CANNABALISM  TO  AMERICANS  WHO 
ATTEND  ITS  SCHOOL. 

If  your  Honors  please,  counsel  for  the  wily  plain- 
tiff, the  Importing  Trust,  in  his  dread  assault  upon 
our  humble  client,  American  Production,  pointed, 
Avith  a  brow  dark  with  awful  reprobation,  at  some 
dozen  or  so  so-called  reciprocity  treaties  sleping  the 
sleep  of  the  unjust  in  the  Senate  pigeon-holes.  But 
what  are  these  so-called  "reciprocity  treaties,"  your 
Honors?  Mere  bills  of  sale  to  the  Cannibal  Chief, 


283 

International  Commercialism,  of  the  American 
conscience  and  the  American  compassionate  heart, 
and,  to  the  wily  plaintiffs,  of  the  precious  souls 
and  bodies  of  millions  of  our  wage-producers !  Alas 
for  poor  human  nature!  Alas  for  the  land  of  the 
free  and  the  home  of  the  brave!  For  we  are  not 
supposed  to  be  the  Cannibal  Islands,  but  a  gener- 
ous, a  noble,  a  never-to-be-excelled  country,  of 
which  the  State  of  Massachusetts  is  the  brightest 
star  in  our  national  constellation  and  the  City  of 
Boston  its  shiniest  ray.  Oh,  what  means  the  clam- 
or from  the  Pilgrim-Father  State  for  the  execution 
of  this  bunch  of  bills  of  sale  of  human  flesh?  Only 
that  where  stomachs  are  concerned  and  pocket- 
books  interested,  the  whole  earth  is  a  Cannibal  Isl- 
and and  the  City  of  Boston  its  hub!  No  wonder 
our  cautious  Senate  lets  those  treaties  sleep  in  its 
pigeon-holes!  And  alas  and  alack  again  for  poor 
human  nature  if  it  does  not  soon  etherize  the 
whole  batch  of  them!  For  they  are  merely  com- 
pacts with  foreign  countries,  executed  at  the  in- 
stance of  our  select  band  of  Cannibals,  by  which 
the  American  people,  through  its  President  and 
Senate,  strip  one  group  of  citizens  of  their  last 
fibre  of  flesh  and  present  it  to  other  American  citi- 
zens, who.  for  some  reason  unknown  to  decency, 
have  a  better  hold  on  the  affections  of  our  Presi- 
dent and  the  Senate  than  have  the  devoted  victims 
of  this  cannibalism.  Look  at  it,  your  Honors J  It 
is  proposed,  for  instance,  to  rob  our  woolen  manu- 
facturers  of  the  whole  home  market,  in  order  that 
our  steel  manufacturers,  for  instance,  may  not  only 
have  the  whole  of  the  home  market  still  protected  by 
tlio  tariff-dike,  but  a  large  slice  of  some  foreign 
market  also,  purchased  with  the  proceeds  of  the 
aforesaid  robbery!  Alas  again  and  again  for  poor 


284 

human  nature,  when  its  itching  palm  can  thus  be 
stretched  out  to  receive  the  coin  made  from  the 
very  bones  and  breath  of  its  brothers  in  toil ! 

Your  Honors,  those  who  are  thus  willing  to  coin 
their  brother's  blood  and  make  money  from  the 
hunger-pangs  which  torture  his  family,  do  not 
come  from  any  one  of  our  States  exclusively;  but 
what  horrifies  us  so  much  is  that  any  of  them  at 
all  should  come  from  the  moral  and  intellectual 
State  of  Massachusetts;  and  that,  too,  your  Hon- 
ors, when  the  Massachusetts  industries  who  join 
this  cruel  campaign  for  reciprocity  treaties  and 
"free  raw  materials,"  are  doing  well,  nay  are  tran- 
scendentally  prosperous  because  of  the  tar  iff -dike, 
whose  kindly  protection  they  desire  taken  away 
from  many  of  their  sister  industries,  in  order  that 
they  themselves  may  be  more  than  extravagantly 
prosperous.  Not  only  are  they  rolling  in  the  wealth 
which  has  come  their  way  within  the  years  since 
the  Dingley  Dike  took  the  place  of  the  Wilson 
Ditch,  but,  from  the  steady  pull  of  our  American 
demand,  braced  to  the  utmost  by  the  biggest  and 
best-paid  army  of  wage-producers  ever  fed  under 
a  single  flag,  an  infinite  measure  of  more  is  even 
now  in  sight.  But  yet  the  cry  of  the  Puritans  is 
"More!"  And  to  get  more,  they  are  demanding 
with  all  their  Boston  arrogance  that,  by  means  of 
these  reciprocity  treaties,  they  be  allowed  to  feed 
into  the  hoppers  of  their  mills  the  very  bodies  and 
souls  of  wage-producers  of  other  industries,  to 
come  out  molded  into  the  shape  of  additional  for- 
eign trade  for  the  feeders.  Oh,  Massachusetts!  Oh, 
Boston !  How  have  the  Puritans  deteriorated,  even 
since  the  davs  of  Salem! 


285 


XXV 

MOTHER  ENGLAND  IS  A  DREADFUL  PICTURE  OP  THE 
HAVOC  WHICH  THESE  WILY  PLAINTIFFS,  IF  UN- 
BRIDLED, WILL  FINALLY  WORK  UPON  OUR  OWN 
DEVOTED  COUNTRY. 

Your  Honors,  as  far  and  wide  as  human  nature 
is  the  presence  and  the  influence  of  these  wily 
plaintiffs.     They  represent  the  cunning,  the  deft 
ness,  the  alertness,  and  the  pitilessness  which  char- 
acterize all  beasts  of  prey.    The  Importing  Trust  is 
nothing  but  unalloyed  rapine.    It  has  not  a  single 
redeeming  feature.     Its  sole  function   is,  by  the 
finesse  of  trade,  to  get  wealth  which  others  have 
labored  to  create.     It  never  creates  wealth  itself; 
but  without  a  moment's  hesitation,  without  a  re- 
gret or  a  pang  of  conscience,  without  a  syllable  of 
compassion,  but  merely  in  order  to  stride  across 
the  ruin  it  has  wrousrht  and  lay  its  untrembling 
hands  on  a  comparatively  insignificant     spoil,  it 
often  destroys  great  masses  of  values.     We  have 
merely  to  point  to  Mother  England  to  prove  the 
worst  we  have  ever  said  about  the  Importing  Trust, 
which,  everywhere,  yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever 
is  the  same.     Here  is  a  bit  of  its  hideous  history: 
In  the  early  40s  of  the  last  century  there  was  great 
distress  among  English  workers  in  various  of  her 
mills.      The    true    cause    of    this    was    the    fact 
that     the     American     tariff     of     1842     had     cut 
off     England's     best     customer,     and     England's 
laborers,  having  theretofore  been  huddled  toirether 
upon   those  trades  which  supplied  the  American 
as  well  as  the  British  market,  were  hit  by  Ameri- 


286 

can  protection  and  were  often  out  of  employment; 
and  of  course  there  was  distress — distress  di- 
rectly traceable  to  the  English  Exporting  Trust, 
which  for  generations  had  warped  and  distorted 
English  industry  from  a  development  in  which  it 
would  have  taken  the  whole  output  of  each  branch 
to  supply  the  demand  of  the  English  people,  to  a 
state  in  which  almost  entire  industries  relied  on 
foreign  markets  to  buy  their  outputs.  Of  course 
those  out  of  employment  in  these  industries  found 
bread  high.  It  would  have  been  high  for  them  at  a 
farthing  a  stone.  And  they  starved.  But  the  Eng- 
lish Exporting  Trust  hid  the  true  reason  by  say- 
ing it  was  dear  bread  and  not  dear  work  that 
starved  the  workers,  and  that  the  English  tariff 
was  the  cause.  Then  the  English  Importing  Trus, 
and  the  English  Exporting  Trust  put  their  heads 
together  and  caused  the  destruction  of  the  English 
tariff-dike,  the  Corn  Laws,  which  were  repealed  in 
1846.  The  American  Importing  Trust  says  the  Re- 
peal of  the  Corn  Laws  was  followed  by  increased 
employment  of  English  wage-producers  and  greater 
happiness  in  England.  Does  it  remember  that  the 
repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws  in  England  in  1846  was 
almost  synchronous  with  the  smashing  of  our 
tariff-dike  here  by  the  notorious  Walker  Tariff,  of 
unholy  memory,  a  measure  for  the  destruction  of 
Northern  mills  for  the  benefit  of  Southern  plan- 
tations ;  and  that,  on  that  account  alone,  England's 
mills  were  started  again  at  high  speed  and  starv- 
ing workers  given  employment  anew?  The  Import- 
ing Trust  also  says  the  famine  in  Ireland  about 
that  time  was  caused  by  English  protective  tariffs. 
Your  Honors,  the  Importing  Trust  is  saintly  in  its 
love  of  truth.  Ireland's  famine  came  then  and  all 
her  famines  have  since  come  from  her  colonizing  by 


2*7 

England  and,  through  rmnjuilsory  free  trade  with 
the  English  Industrial  (Jiant,  the  destruction  of 
her  wonderfully  diversified  system  of  industries 
which  forced  Ireland,  without  wages  to  buy  other 
things,  largely  to  live  on  potatoes;  and  when  the 
potato  crop  rotted,  poor  Ireland  starved  to  death, 
although  "only  across  the  channel  are  people  wjho 
roll  in  gold.''  No,  your  Honors;  it  is  not  English 
protection  that  starved  Ireland,  but  English  free 
trade  with  her  unhappy  colony  "across  the  chan- 
nel," on  the  greenest  and  richest  and  yet  because  of 
free  trade,  the  unhappiest  island  on  the  globe.  It 
is  not  land  or  water,  or  mines  or  forests  alone  that, 
make  people  rich,  your  Honors.  It  is  the  sacred 
right  to  labor  for  decent  wages. 

But  what  was  the  early  effect  upon  England  of 
the  abandonment  of  her  tariff-dike,  your  Honors? 
It  was  a  dreadful  slaughter  of  English  men  and 
women,  which  forms  a  chapter  of  horrors  worse 
than  that  which  is  written  by  the  sacking  by  sav- 
ages of  a  great  city.  England's  workers  were  ex- 
ploited by  two  enemies  then,  both  the  Importing 
Trust  and  the  Exporting  Trust.  The  Exporting 
Trust  had  already  congested  English  workers  too 
much  on  a  limited  number  of  industries,  leaving 
them  to  depend  for  their  lives  on  a  foreign  export 
trade  which  was  always  affected  by  wind  and 
weather,  war  and  diplomacy,  and  was  often  at  the 
mercy  of  the  American  Congress,  which,  at  one 
session,  would  build  a  tariff-dike  against  English 
goods  and  dispense  starvation  to  English  workers 
thus  made  idle;  and  at  the  next,  perhaps,  when  the 
English  lobby  in  Washington  was  strong  enough, 
with  the  aid  of  our  Importing  Trust,  the  wily  plain- 
tiff herein,  to  make  Congressmen  shut  their  eyes 
to  the  death  they  were  dealing  among  their  own 


288 

countrymen,  would  tear  down  the  dike  again  and 
renew  hope  in  English  hearts.  But  now,  in  addi- 
tion to  the  havoc  made  by  England's  Exporting 
Trust,  her  Importing  Trust,  by  exploring  and 
exploiting  every  land  where  goods  could  be 
made  more  cheaply  than  in  England,  del- 
uged her  with  foreign  goods  and  drowned 
out  of  their  employment  forever  thousands 
upon  thousands  of  England's  cleverest  workers. 
Whole  industries  were  wiped  off  the  English  map. 
Thousands  of  farmers  were  beggared  by  the  impor- 
tation of  American  wheat,  and  her  farming  lands 
were  abandoned  to  pasture  by  the  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  acres;  while  in  the  vilest  of  quarters 
in  her  large  cities,  the  unemployed  festered  in 
heaps.  And  everywhere  in  Great  Britain  laboring 
humanity  became  so  cheap  that  none  was  so  poor 
as  to  do  it  reverence. 

This  exploitation  of  the  English  pay-roll,  on  the 
one  hand  by  the  Exporting  Trust  and  on  the  other 
by  the  Importing  Trust,  rapidly  gathered  the  en- 
tire wealth  of  the  British  Islands  into  the  hands 
of  the  members  of  the  Importing  Trust,  the  great 
merchants,  and  the  Exporting  Trust,  the  manu- 
facturers and  the  nobility  who  patronized  manu- 
facturing industries.  England's  industrial  history 
is  the  history  of  the  machinations  of  the  British 
counterparts  of  these  wily  plaintiffs  to  enslave 
British  wage-producers  and  grow  rich  from  their 
bartered  bodies  and  souls.  In  the  face  of  such  a 
history,  what  a  mockery  is  the  national  boast  of 
England,  to  wit,  "No  slave  can  live  under  the  Brit- 
ish flag!"  Why,  your  Honors,  England  has  done 
nothing  else  but  enslave  her  wage-producers  for 
generations.  For  centuries  she  led  English  indus- 
tries along  the  lines  in  which,  in  the  form  of  spe- 


289 

cial  products,  her  manufacturers  could  pawn  her 
stores  of  coal  and  iron  with  the  Loan  Uncles  of 
the  Importing  Trusts  of  all  the  foreign-trading 
countries  in  the  world,  thus,  while  impoverishing 
the  many,  enriching  the  few  who  could  purchase  a 
title  to  her  mines,  by  allowing  them  at  bargain 
prices,  and  in  a  comparatively  short  time,  to  scat- 
ter all  over  the  world  the  natural  stores  which  if 
used  alone  for  her  own  people,  should  have  lasted 
her  ten  thousand  years;  and  with  an  insanity  which 
surely  did  not  come  from  the  good  gods,  placing 
herself  in  a  position  where  she  would  be  at  the 
mercy  of  the  outside  earth  for  these  things.  Thus 
England's  Exporting  Trust  has  sold  out  the  Eng- 
lish nation  in  the  world's  public  auction-room  and 
left  English  wage-producers  at  the  mercy  of  the 
ebbing  and  flowing  tide  of  foreign  trade  and  for- 
eign dike-building  which  has  barred  out  English 
goods,  except  on  terms  which  English  wage-pro- 
ducers have  had  to  pay  in  lower  wages. 

So  England  has  become  industrially  lop-sided. 
Great  in  mineral  wealth,  but  only  entitled  to  a  me- 
diocre position  as  a  producer  of  her  own  food,  her 
Exporting  Trust  cashed  in  her  mineral  wealth  and 
piled  up  power  in  that  form  fifty-fold  greater  than 
her  natural  strength  in  population  and  land  entit- 
led her  to  have,  and  thus  pawned  at  a  low  competi- 
tive figure  England's  power  to  live  long  and  sober- 
ly. A  natural  dwarf,  England's  Exporting  Trust — 
at  that  time  England  herself — desired  to  be  a  giant, 
and,  for  a  time,  became  a  giant  in  manufacturing 
while  she  shrank  to  a  pigmy  in  farming.  Then  the 
Importing  Trust  came  to  its  own;  and  with  free 
trade  proceeded  to  convert  both  English  farmers 
and  English  factory  hands  into  coin  for  its  till. 
And  this  thing  has  gone  on  until  England  is  a  land 


290 

of  starving  workers  and  of  people  whose  only  ex- 
cuse for  not  leaving  her  inhospitable  shores  is  the 
lack  of  the  price  of  the  passage  across.  With  her 
impoverished  population  and  her  prostrate  agricul- 
ture she  is  at  the  mercy  of  foreign  markets  wherein 
to  unload  her  manufactures  in  exchange  for  bread. 
And  after  all  these  years  of  riotous  living  by  the 
counterparts  of  these  wily  plaintiffs,  what  is  she 
facing?  The  alternative  of  going  back  and  repair- 
ing her  tariff-dike  against  foreign  goods  coming  in, 
and  building  a  tariff  dam  against  her  own  pro- 
ducts going  out;  or  industrial  and  political  anni- 
hilation. Her  fate  is1  written  large  on  the  wall. 
She  never  was  entitled  to  be  larger  than  her  power 
of  growing  food  for  her  own  people ;  and  back  again 
to  the  size  to  which  she  was  originally  fitted  to 
grow,  she  must  shrink.  Aye,  your  Honors,  and  to 
as  much  smaller  dimensions  as  her  natural  resour- 
ces have  been  squandered  in  foreign  trade.  The 
usurer  with  which  she  has  pawned  her  future  for 
her  present  will  soon  demand  back  his  principal 
together  with  his  interest.  With  her  mineral 
wealth  fatally  reduced  to  secure  those  advances 
with  which  she  has  paid  for  her  inflated  grandeur, 
she  will  be  compelled  to  raise  a  huge  tariff  dike 
against  grain,  turn  her  pastures  to  plow  lands, 
clear  her  forests,  confiscate  her  gentlemen's  parks, 
and  raise  her  own  food;  and,  failing  in  her  foreign 
markets,  now  being  shut  to  her  by  dike-builders, 
rely  only  on  the  market  made  by  her  own  people  at 
home.  Thus  she  will  shrink  to  her  own  natural 
size  by  the  exorcising  of  the  two  devils,  who  are 
counterparts  of  the  wily  plaintiffs  in  this  suit; 
but  she  will  stand  on  a  more  healthy  and  secure 
footing. 

Why,  your  Honors,  is  so  little  known  or  said 


201 

of  the  havoc  wrought  in  our  good  Mother  England's 
happiness  by  the  first  cousins  of  these  wily  plain- 
tiffs? Merely  because  these  very  wily  plaintiffs 
hide  the  English  ruin  by  every  means  in  their 
power,  to  the  end  that  our  good  people  may  not  look 
upon  these  wily  plaintiffs  also  with  aversion.  Yes, 
your  Honors,  the  facts  of  England's  misery  are 
carefully  suppressed.  Only  the  good  figures  leak 
out  to  this  country.  The  English  Exporting  and 
Importing  Trusts  work  together  with  these  wily 
plaintiffs  to  keep  our  people  ignorant  of  the  re- 
sults of  their  sale  of  English  wage-producers  into 
bondage.  Whole  English  industries  have  been 
wiped  out  and  hundreds  of  thousands  of  British 
wage-producers  have  been  crowded  from  their 
trades  and  have  died  in  the  deepest  misery  because 
of  free  trade  and  its  pestilential  competition,  but 
these  facts  are  never  mentioned  in  the  doctored  fig- 
ures pretending  to  show  the  condition  of  English 
industry.  No  your  Honors,  these  English  statis- 
tics do  not  show  the  frightful  congestion  of  British 
labor  upon  a  narrowed  field  of  employment.  They 
do  not  tell  of  the  overrunning  of  their  country  with 
foreign  goods;  the  immigration  of  English  indus- 
tries to  the  mainland  of  Europe ;  or  the  invasion  of 
English  wage-producing  fields  by  foreigners  and  by 
women  and  children,  paid  even  less  than  the  star- 
vation wages  of  the  English  adult  male.  Probably 
the  chapter  of  horrors  in  the  English  free  trade  his- 
tory will — we  might  say  "can"  never  be  written. 
Language  is  too  weak  to  describe  the  degradation 
of  body  and  soul,  the  mental  and  physical  anguish, 
and  the  starvation-slaughter  scattered  among  Eng- 
lish wage-producers  by  the  counterparts  of  these 
wily  plaintiffs,  even  if  every  possible  detail  of  these 
horrors  were  not  strenuously  suppressed  by  this  in- 


292 

ternational  guild  of  Exporting  and  Importing 
Trusts.  But  we  of  this  land  have  nothing  to  say. 
Again  and  again  these  wily  plaintiffs  have  wrought 
a  ruin  among  our  own  wage-producers  for  the  mo- 
ment as  terrible  as  that  wrought  in  an  equal  time 
by  their  cousins  in  England.  All  unrest  among  our 
wage-producers  here;  and  all  disquiet  among  those 
of  other  countries  are  the  direct  fruit  of  the  tilling 
and  sowing  of  these  wily  plaintiffs  and  their  foreign 
kinsmen.  Wherever  move  our  own  wily  plaintiffs  or 
their  counterparts  abroad,  the  goal  of  their  efforts 
is  the  undetected  conversion  of  broad  national  pros- 
perity into  narrow  individual  fatness  for  the  mem- 
bers of  these  destructive  "trusts."  Yea,  as  para- 
sites to  a  bleeding  host  these  wily  plaintiffs  attach 
themselves  to  the  nations  at  a  loss  of  national  blood, 
which,  were  it  all  known,  wTould  "stagger  human- 
ity." 

Paralyze  the  right  arm  of  these  wily  plaintiffs, 
your  Honors,  and  of  all  their  foreign  confreres,  and 
an  ideal  socialism  would  pervade  the  earth;  a  so- 
cialism which  would  not  impair  individual  initia- 
tive, but  would  reach  all  the  highest  aims  of  our 
current  socialism.  Pure  socialism  is  the  pure  doc- 
trine of  human  brotherhood;  but  the  form  usually 
advocated  does  not  take  note  of  the  fact  that  indi- 
viduals are  often  as  far  apart  as  the  poles  in  nat- 
ural gifts;  and  it  therefore  would  deprive  the  com- 
munity of  the  benefit  of  its  aggregate  strength  by 
throwing  away  the  power  of  each  individual  in  ex- 
cess of  a  certain  average.  But,  your  Honors,  if  by 
a  prohibitory  dike  you  shut  out  foreign  goods  and 
by  a  prohibitive  dam  you  kept  in  domestic  goods, 
the  aggregate  production  of  the  community  would 
be  divided  among  its  members  in  proportion  to  pro- 
ductive merit  as  expressed  by  individual  ability. 


For  the  whole  of  the  community's  demand  being 
directed  to  its  whole  supply,  and  wages  rising  or 
falling  according  to  the  ratio  between  demand  for 
and  supply  of  wage-production,  both  wages  and 
prices  would  come  to  an  equilibrium  in  a  given  in- 
dustry at  the  point  at  which  supply  exactly  equaled 
demand  for  the  given  product;  and  profits  of  prop- 
erty-producers then  would  have  been  reduced  to  the 
point  where  a  lower  profit  would  cause  the  migra- 
tion of  capital ;  which  would  also  be  the  point  where 
profit  would  be  merely  the  wages  of  the  property 
producer,  fixed  also  by  the  ratio  between  the  de- 
mand and  the  supply  of  the  given  form  of  prop- 
erty-production. Wages  would  now  be  mere  coun- 
ters showing  the  extent  to  which  each  wage-pro- 
ducer was  entitled  to  draw  upon  the  common  sup- 
ply of  the  community;  and  the  wages  of  a  given 
wage-producer  would  be  large  or  small,  according 
to  his  energy  as  a  producer.  But  foreign  trade,  in 
which  the  wily  plaintiffs  live,  destroys  this  equi- 
librium and  frequently  returns  to  a  wage-pro- 
ducer wages  not  proportioned  to  his  ability,  his  em- 
ployment being  as  a  rule  a  mere  matter  of  chance, 
determined  by  the  fact  whether  the  wily  plaintiff, 
the  Importing  Trust,  has  sold  abroad  the  country's 
demand  which  otherwise  would  have  come  to  our 
wage-producer.  Furthermore,  the  wage-producer's 
wages  should  be  his  title  to  a  portion  of  his  product 
in  merchandise  commensurate,  not  arbitrarily  with 
the  money  he  earns,  but  with  the  amount  of  energy 
he  applies  to  his  work,  which  is  supposed  to  be 
represented  by  his  wages  at  the  time  he  does  his 
work.  But  by  the  work  of  the  Exporting  Trust, 
the  purchasing  power  of  his  wages  may  be  reduced 
between  the  date  of  his  earning  and  the  date  of 
his  spending,  from  the  fact  that  a  part  of  the  sup- 


294 

ply  he  assisted  to  make  has  been  reduced  by  export, 
without  a  synchronous  and  automatic  reduction  of 
the  demand,  which  causes  an  increase  in  price,  or, 
a  reduction  in  the  purchasing  power  of  his  wages. 

In  these  ways  the  wily  plaintiffs  cause  an  uneasi- 
ness among  our  wage-producers ;  for,  cut  off  by  low 
wages  on  the  one  hand  and  by  high  prices  on  the 
other,  industrious  spirits  do  not  receive  an  equita- 
ble reward.  Honesty  and  personal  integrity  "cut 
no  ice."  Physical  and  mental  ability  to  do  work 
well  are  not  in  it  with  foreign-trade  trickery.  And 
what  turns  the  thoughtful  to  socialism  and  the 
thoughtless  to  anarchy  is  the  grievous  injustice  of  a 
situation,  where  a  man  is  held  good  enough  to  pay 
taxes  and  help  bear  the  other  burdens  of  communal 
life,  nay,  is  held  to  a  strict  accountability  therefor, 
but  is  not  good  enough  to  be  given  his  pro  rata  of 
all  the  employment  furnished  by  providing  for  the 
country's  wants.  The  Importing  Trust  sells  our 
demand  abroad  and  the  Exporting  Trust  our  sup- 
ply, destroying  the  equilibrium  here  between  sup- 
ply and  demand  which  otherwise  would  soon  make 
life  a  stable  thing  in  this  fair  land  of  ours,  cut  off 
gambling  in  stocks  and  crops,  and  put  a  premium 
on  steady  morality. 

The  socialism  we  believe  in  your  Honors,  is  such 
as  we  have  described,  which  would  make  the  domes- 
tic market  the  property  of  those  whose  supplies 
were  offered  to  it  as  their  liquidated  demands,  call- 
ing for  the  supplies  offered  by  their  fellow  wage- 
producers  in  this  country.  And  we  have  already 
said  that  what  creates  current  socialism  in  this 
country  is  the  fact  that  this  property-right  in  the 
market  "cuts  no  ice;"  since  these  wily  plaintiffs 
are  allowed  to  appropriate  our  wage-producers' 
market  made  at  wage-100  and  sell  its  consequent 


295 

demand-100  to  any  bidder  in  the  cost-20  world  they 
please,  and  at  any  price  they  can  get,  thus  killing 
the  demand  for  American  wage-producers.  We  do 
not  see,  your  Honors,  why  the  wage-producers  who, 
by  their  association  in  a  community  create  a  mar- 
ket there,  should  not  be  considered  to  own  their 
common  market  as  much  as  they  own  their  wages. 
And  if  this  is  socialism,  your  Honors,  the  learned 
counsel  for  thes'e  wily  plaintiffs  will  have  to  make 
the  best  of  it.  Not  only  would  this  kind  of  social- 
ism, by  rewarding  it  to  the  limit,  keep  individual 
initiative  alive  but  it  would  also  take  care  of  all 
the  weaklings.  There  would  be  no  "survival  of  the 
fittest,"  in  the  sense  that  the  unfit  would  perish  and 
leave  the  fit  them  surviving.  It  would  rather  be 
"The  leadership  of  the  fittest  and  the  followership 
of  the  unfit."  The  unfit  would  not  perish  but  they 
would  be  improved.  In  the  general  employment 
which  would  prevail  at  high  wages,  there  would  be 
room  for  all  workers,  no  matter  of  what  grade. 
Ami  if  any  foil  by  the  way,  they  woud  be  kindly 
fared  for;  because  the  human  heart  is  not  hard 
where  it  is  not  necessary  to  the  life  of  the  owner  of 
the  heart.  And  there  would  be  enough  to  feed, 
clothe  and  shelter  the  weak  in  the  abundance  pre- 
vailing where  everv  penny's  worth  of  demand  in 
the  domestic'  market  was  reserved  for  the  supply 
furnished  by  its  wage-producers. 

We  have  held  up  Mother  England  as  an  example 
of  what  follows  from  a  doctrine  different  from  ours, 
a  doctrine  which  does  not  admit  the  exclusive  right 
of  the  wage-producer  to  his  domestic  market  and 
.nil 'the  opportunities  of  employment  which  it  crives 
him.  P.v  takinir  Ihe  yoke  of  the  cousins  of  these 
wily  plaintiffs,  she  has  experienced  what  these  wily 
plaintiffs  are,  viz.,  the  agents  of  the  back-track 


296 

movement  in  human  development,  of  involution  to- 
wards the  narrower  individualism  of  the  old  feudal 
times  instead  of  evolution  towards  the  broader  na- 
tion. For  as  against  a  broad  nationalism,  these 
wily  plaintiffs,  both  in  effect  predatory,  aliensi, 
stand  for  a  narrower  individualism;  as  against  a 
wider  and  wider  distribution  of  wealth,  they  stand 
for  the  gathering  of  wealth  into  fewer  and  fewer 
hands,  as  a  swarm  of  self -asserting  and  strenuous 
individuals  first  drive  the  nation  asunder  into  frag- 
ments and  then  absorb  the  fragments,  the  larger 
individuals  finishing  by  swallowing  all  the  smaller 
ones,  until  we  have  retraced  our  steps  to  the  time 
of  the  earl  and  the  duke,  the  fortified  castle  and  the 
dungeon-tower,  and  the  ragged  and  hungry  retain- 
ers, huddled  in  the  barracks,  about  the  kitchen  gar- 
den and  in  the  quarters  of  the  horses,  cows,  sheep, 
goats,  and  asses.  This  would  surely  come  from  fol- 
lowing the  rule,  "Every  man  for  himself;  the  devil 
take  the  hindmost."  There  is  no  brotherhood  in 
this  rule.  It  is  a  spear  which  knows  no  brother. 
It  is  the  rule  of  the  Big  Stick.  Broad  intelligence 
is  out.  Brawn  and  cunning  are  in  full  command. 
It  is  a  burrowing  with  mole  eyes  for  the  little  dol- 
lar just  ahead  in  the  dirt,  and  a  missing  of  the  vis- 
ion of  the  concrete  nation,  upright,  happy  and 
wealthv,  moral  and  strong,  which  would  surely  rise 
from  following  the  rule,  "All  for  each;  each  for 
all,"  and  recognizing  the  sacred  risrht  of  each  citi- 
zen to  do  as  much  work  as  would  fall  to  his  lot  by 
dividing  among  all  the  citizens  of  the  nation,  ac- 
cording to  their  varied  powers,  the  opportunities  to 
work  caused  by  the  necessities  of  the  nation ;  and  to 
share  in  the  fruit  of  this  united  production  by  a 
like  division  according  to  merit,  of  all  the  supply 
matte  by  the  nation  at  work.  These  wily  plaintiffs 


297 

stand  not  for  the  success  of  the  industrious,  the 
honest,  the  willing,  and  the  true;  but  for  the  suc- 
cess of  him  whose  talents  are  greatest  in  contrast- 
ing and  playing  the  necessities  of  one  human  being 
over  against  the  like  necessities  of  another,  with 
an  incidental  stab  in  the  direction  of  making  the 
necessities  of  each  as  dire  as  possible  through  the 
withholding  of  his  food  by  intercepting  his  employ- 
ment. They  represent  the  marauding  elements  in 
human  nature.  They  browse  upon  the  misfortunes 
of  the  weak.  They  block  the  avenues  by  which  one 
wage-producer  may  exchange  his  products  with  an- 
other; while  they  take  toll  from  both  on  pain  of 
starvation  to  the  one  who  refuses  to  be  levied  upon 
by  these  brigands  of  international  trade.  They 
make  success  depend  upon  the  same  qualities  which 
they  impersonate.  The  one  who  is  the  most  dili- 
gent peddler,  the  most  adroit  bargainer,  the  cun- 
n ingest  hawker  and  hood-winker,  is  the  one  whom 
thev  decorate  with  their  highest  honors.  So  they 
chaffer,  and  dicker,  and  huckster,  and  hunt  the 
earth  around  to  find  the  weakest  and  the  most  mis- 
erable producer,  in  order  to  get  his  product  at  the 
weakest  and  most  miserable  price  and  stand  be- 
tween the  strongest  and  best  producer,  the  man 
with  the  hammer  in  his  hand  and  a  hope  in  his 
heart,  and  the  market  upon  which  his  activity  and 
liis  hope  depend.  Thev  play  misery  against  happi- 
ness and  coin  the  difference  between  the  happy 
man's  happiness  and  his  misery  into  a  profit  on  an 
importing  or  exporting  deal:  and  thev  call  this 
"Bnvincr  in  the  cheapest  and  soiling  in  the  dearest 
market."  Arid  so  with  the  old  "Devil  catch  the 
hindmost"  rule  in  operation,  it  is  the  most  violent, 
the  most  cunninsr.  the  most  unscrupulous,  and  the 
most  strenuous  who,  by  playing  poverty,  distress 


298 

aud  harrowing  necessity  against  poverty,  distress 
and  harrowing  necessity  and  pocketing  the  differ- 
ence between  various  degrees  of  misery,  gather  the 
fat  of  the  earth  into  their  store-houses,  and  so  get 
the  farthest  on  the  road  to  riches.  Quiet  worth  and 
industry  do  not  count,  except  to  offer  a  larger  booty 
to  these  wily  plaintiffs.  If  there  is  any  value  in 
these  virtues  shown  by  wage-producers,  these  plain- 
tiffs alone  get  it.  And  since  as  compared  with  the 
industrious  and  patient,  honest  and  plodding  wage- 
producers,  the  members  of  these  wily  plaintiffs  are 
few,  to  give  a  free  hand  to  these  wily  plaintiffs,  is 
slowly  but  surety  to  gather  the  wealth  of  the  earth, 
wherever  in  any  wise  now  equitably  distributed, 
back  into  the  hands  of  the  pushers  and  pullers,  the 
jostlers  and  shovers,  the  members  of  these  wily 
plaintiffs,  and  bring  back  the  days  of  vassalage  and 
feudal  tenures  under  barons  and  chiefs  and  bear- 
shooters  as  violent  and  harsh  as  those  of  old.  But 
reverse  the  progress;  cut  off  the  international  car- 
nage of  these  wily  plaintiffs,  take  away  from  the 
T.ig  Sticks  and  the  "Gluttons  of  the  Lime-Light," 
their  power  to  coin  violence  and  cunning,  and  the 
quiet  and  the  industrious  will  bring  their  virtues  to 
a  ready  market;  industry  and  honesty  will  come  to 
be  the  "coin  of  the  realm''  which  will  purchase  for 
their  possessors  a  full  share  of  all  the  good  things 
\vhich  they  assist  in  producing.  There  will  be  no 
pushing  or  pulling  of  mobs  of  unemployed;  but  the 
whole  country  will  go  rhythmically  forward  to 
higher  planes  of  civilization  and  refinement,  and 
wo  shall  become  the  most  moral,  just  and  humane, 
as  well  as  the  most  powerful  of  all  nations,  a  nation 
which  no  longer  sacrifices  the  good  of  the  smallest 
to  that  of  the  greatest  number,  as  the  Cannibals  of 
the  South  Sea  Islands  do,  but  which  first  gives  to 


200 

each  all  the  work  he  needs  and  then  secures  the 
greatest  happiness  of  all  by  securing  for  each  all 
the  fruits  of  all  the  toil  to  which  he  turns  a  willing 


XXVI 

THE  ASSAULT  OP  THE  WILY  PLAINTIFFS  COUNSEL 
UPON  THE  NEWSPAPERS  OF  THE  COUNTRY  WAS 
WHOLLY  WITHOUT  WARRANT  AND  UNJUSTIFIA- 
BLE. 

May  it  please  your  Honors,  in  their  lengthy  argu- 
ments before  you,  counsel  for  both  these  wily  plain- 
tiffs, the  Importing  Trust  and  the  Exporting  Trust, 
accused  our  newspapers,  in  behalf  of  the  "extor- 
tions" of  the  "trusts,"  of  being  in  league  with  the 
alleged  "trusts"  to  maintain  the  tariff-dike  without 
"revision."  It  is  evident  that  learned  counsel  have 
not  read  the  newspapers  of  late.  If  they  had,  they 
would  observe  that  practically  all  the  newspapers, 
of  our  great  seaboard  cities  where  "boards  of  trade" 
owned  by  these  wily  plaintiffs  are  located,  and 
many  of  those  inland,  with  one  voice  favor  an  early 
"revision"  of  the  dike.  We  do  not  attack  them  on 
this  account.  Newspapers'  must,  according  to  cir- 
cumstances, take  care  of  the  interests  of  their  con- 
stituents or  their  stockholders.  They  are  neither 
to  praise  nor  to  blame  for  anything  they  print. 
They  fill  somebody's  "long  felt  want,"  because  fill- 
ing it  is  money  in  their  pockets.  If  newspapers  are 
run. by  stock  companies  and  these  stock  companies 
are  formed  to  pay  dividends,  the  newspaper  so  run 
must  take  that  side  of  this  battle  between  American 
Production  and  these  wily  plaintiffs  which  will  pay 


300 

the  largest  dividends.  Now,  wherever  the  "trusts," 
that  is  to  say,  some  branch  of  this  defendant, 
American  Production,  have  the  greater  interests 
and  furnish  the  larger  constituency,  the  newspa- 
pers must  stand  by  the  "trusts."  On  the  other 
hand,  in  our  large  seaboard  importing  cities,  where 
the  greater  part  of  newspaper  constituencies  is 
made  up  of  importing  houses  and  their  clerks  and 
employees,  the  newspapers  necessarily  stand  by 
these  wily  plaintiffs.  And  this  is  also  true  of  many 
inland  newspapers  with  Importing  and  Exporting 
Trust  connections.  Newspaper  editorials  in  either 
direction  should  be  totally  discounted  by  all 
thoughtful  citizens;  and  the  latter  should  look  the 
whole  ground  over  and  think  and  determine  for 
themselves  as  to  whether  logically,  a  man  should 
expect  more  for  the  country  and  its  people  from  an 
organization  like  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing 
Trust,  for  instance,  that  never  produces  a  penny's 
worth  of  wealth  in  this  country,  but  merely  awaits 
the  time  when  there  is  wealth  enough  to  skim  off,  as 
cream  from  our  milk  pans,  while,  through  its  news- 
papers it  roots  against  high  prices  and  the  "trusts;" 
an  organization  that  never  employs  a  dollar's 
worth  of  American  labor,  except  for  the  purpose  of 
storing  and  trucking  our  dollars  out  of  the  coun- 
try; and  whose  whole  campaign  against  this  de- 
fendant, American  Production,  is  carried  on  with 
the  aid  of  the  covetousness,  envy,  and  hatred  of  our 
thoughtless  and  often  ignorant  citizens ;  or  whether 
a  man  should  expect  more  for  his  country  from  an 
organization  like  this  defendant,  American  Produc- 
tion, which,  although  stigmatized  by  the  name  of 
the  "trusts,"  employs  millions  of  Americans  in  its 
mills,  pays  them  the  highest  wages  in  the  world, 
maintains  this  as  a  wage-100  country  against  a 


301 

wage-20  world,  creates  billions  of  dollars  worth  of 
wealth  every  year  from  our  natural  stores,  and  lays 
out  every  penny  of  its  earnings  in  further  oppor- 
tunities to  American  wage-producers  to  realize 
their  brightest  hopes  of  a  happy  and  care-free  old 
age. 

The  newspapers,  your  Honors,  follow  a  very  nat- 
ural course  in  speaking  well  of  those  who  advertise 
the  most  liberally  in  their  columns;  and  when  these 
advertisers  are  German  Steamship  Lines,  it  is  very 
natural  that  they  should  speak  well  of  German 
Agreements  that  make  the  German  Steamship 
Lines  carry  heavier  cargoes  into  pur  markets  here, 
even  though  these  same  cargoes  silence  our  own 
factories  and  snuff  out  like  sickly  candles  the  homes 
and  hopes  of  thousands  of  our  citizens.  It  is  also 
very  natural  for  such  newspapers  to  speak  earnest- 
ly for  "revision"  and  for  "reciprocity,"  and  for  any 
other  device  for  increasing  the  gains  of  these  wily 
plaintiffs,  their  exacting  masters.  We  say  that  this 
is  a  very  natural  course,  for  the  selfish  course  is 
the  necessary  course  and  therefore  the  most  nat- 
ural. And  yet  we  would  not  advise  our  people  to 
throw  away  their  Bibles  just  yet  and  pin  their  faith 
to  newspapers  who  are  compelled  to  pin  themselves 
to  the  interests  of  the  Importing  Trust,  or  those  of 
the  other  wrily  plaintiff,  the  Exporting  Trust. 

And  in  this  connection,  although  we  have  touched 
before  upon  the  same  topic,  we  cannot  neglect  the 
opportunity  once  more  to  expose  in  our  own  way 
this  cruelly  treacherous  claim  that  higher  prices 
are  due  to  the  vicious  and  malicious  combinations 
in  restraint  of  trade  called  the  "trusts,"  otherwise 
our  client,  American  Produtcion,  the  suffering 
host  of  its  deadly  parasite,  the  Importing  Trust. 

Tour  Honors,    thoso    wily    plaintiffs1    are    well 


302 

aware  that  the  rise  in  prices,  to  which,  to  fire  our 
people's  hatred  and  cause  them  to  aid  in  their 
own  destruction,  they  so  cunningly  point,  is  world- 
wide, is  not  the  work  of  American  "trusts"  and 
cannot  be  remedied  here  except  by  making  the 
"price  of  coals  too  high,  and  of  flesh  and  blood 
too  cheap."  These  wily  plaintiffs  know  that  the 
rise  in  prices  of  the  present  industrial  era  is  the 
same  sort  of  rise  in  prices  that  always  follows1  the 
general  employment  of  all  the  people  here  at  good 
wages.  When  labor  is  in  such  good  demand  it 
becomes  dear  as  compared  with  money ;  and  money 
being  therefore  'relatively  cheap  and  products 
made  by  labor  dearer  because  of  the  dearer  labor 
that  makes  them,  it  takes  more  money  to  buy 
goods.  We  might  produce  a  formula  stating  the 
rase  in  few  words  and  short  sentences,  like  this: 

When  labor  is  dear,  money  is  cheap;  prices  are 
high. 

When  labor  is  cheap,  money  is  dear;  prices  are 
low. 

We  could  also  reach  the  same  point  in  another 
way,  like  this: 

When  wages  are  high,  demand  is  stronger  than 
supply,  and  prices  rise. 

When  wages  are  low,  demand  is  weaker  than 
simDly,  and  prices  fall. 

There  is  one  peculiarity  in  the  case,  however, 
which  should  be  noted,  and  that  is  when  labor  is 
in  demand,  wages  rise  more  rapidly  than  prices; 
but  when  labor  is  not  in  demand,  wages  fall  more 
rapidly  than  prices.  This  is  because  the  wage-pro- 
ducer or  laborer  stands  between  the  property- 
producer  or  capitalist  and  the  product.  When 
demand  for  products  springs  up,  the  property-pro- 
ducer must  make  terms  with  his  wage-producer 


303 

before  lie  can  get  at  the  profit  iii  the  product,  and, 
measuring  the  profit  ahead,  and  desiring  to  get 
into  the  market  with  his  goods  ahead  of  his  com- 
petitor, he  offers  wages  which  will  immediately 
tempt  the  wage-producer  to  do  his  work.  On  the 
other  hand,  when  demand  slackens,  before  the 
glut  in  the  market  is  apparent  and  prices  have 
had  to  fall  also,  it  is  the  wage-producer  who  is 
first  made  to  pay  for  the  lessening  demand  by 
lower  wages'  or  total  idleness.  It  therefore  hap- 
pens that  it  is  the  wage-producer  who  is  first  bene- 
fited when  a  higher  tariff  dike  strengthens  demand 
and  the  first  injured  when  "revision"  has  spilled 
the  American  demand  over  the  earth  and  drawn 
it  away  from  our  client,  American  Production. 

We  hear  the  respectful  chuckle  of  counsel  for 
the  wily  plaintiffs  and  their  soto  voce  exclamation 
of  surprise  that  from  our  declaration  that  the 
rise  in  prices  has  been  world-wide  we  should  so 
inconsequently  turn  to  an  explanation  of  how  the 
tariff -dike  causes  prices  to  rise  in  this  country. 
But,  your  Honors,  we  are  not  so  inconsequent  as 
we  look.  High  wages  in  this  country  affect  wages 
all  over  the  world.  For  it  must  be  remembered 
that,  since  we  are  a  cost-100  country  against  a  cost- 
20  world,  the  two  billions'  worth  of  goods  which 
we  are  now  annually  importing,  has  as  great  a 
stimulation  upon  the  call  for  labor  in  the  outside 
world  as  the  call  for  ten  billions'  worth  of  goods 
from  our  client  American  Production  would  have 
upon  the  call  for  our  wage-producers;  and  that 
would  mean  an  increased  demand  for  goods  by 
workers  in  the  outside  world  equivalent  to  an  in- 
creased demand  by  our  workers  upon  our  domes- 
tic market  of  ten  billions  of  dollars  annually.  Is 
it  surprising  then  that  there  should  be  a  world- 


304 

wide  increase  in  prices  as  a  direct  result  of  the 
Dingley  Law  which  so  increased  the  consuming 
power  of  our  country  that  it  annually  lodges  in 
the  shops  of  foreign  nations  the  equivalent  of  a 
ten-billion-dollar  order? 

One  cannot  help  reflecting  on  the  great  loss  in 
true  civilization  and  in  refinement  in  the  better 
sense  we  are  suffering  now  by  the  escapage  yearly 
to  other  countries  of  this  two-billion-dollar  demand 
which  could  easily  be  responded  to  by  our  own 
wage-producers.  And  another  thing  should  give 
us  wholesome  pause  in  this  prodigality:  We  our- 
selves are  feathering  the  arrow  which  will  one  day 
drink  our  blood.  By  sending  abroad  this  ten-bill- 
ion dollar  annual  stimulus  to  foreign  enterprise, 
we  are  refining  their  processes  and  reducing  their 
industrial  system  more  and  more  to  such  a  per- 
fect bit  of  machinery  that  they  will  be  able  soon 
to  do  what  they  have  never  yet  done,  viz.,  avail 
themselves  to  the  limit  of  the  great  difference  be- 
tween their  wage-scales  and  ours  and  bring  their 
cost  of  production  into  scientific  harmony  with 
their  opportunity;  which  would  soon  make  us 
choose  between  national  annihilation  and  the  to- 
tal exclusion  of  foreign  imports  competing  with 
our  own  products. 

Your  Honors,  alluding  again  to  combinations 
in  restraint  of  trade,  the  greatest  combination  in 
restraint  of  trade,  that  is  our  domestic  trade,  in 
this  whole  world  is  this  wily  plaintiff,  the  Import- 
ing Trust.  For  the  wily  plaintiff  has  existed  in 
this  country  so  long  and  has  been  identified  so 
much  with  its  own  hypocritical  crusades  against 
the  "trusts"  and  high  prices,  otherwise  as  we  have 
shown,  high  wages,  that,  by  a  sort  of  tacit  sym- 
pathy, a  wireless  telegraphy  of  sordid  sentiment, 


305 

it  has  made  part  of  itself  all  the  pompous  doc- 
trinaires in  the  country,  so  that  each  of  them,  in 
tearing  down  American  prosperity  and  building 
up  foreign  prosperity,  is  just  as  anxious  to  do  the 
work  of  the  wily  plaintiff  as  if  he  also  shared 
directly  in  the  division  of  that  part  of  the  Ameri- 
can savings-bank  fund  which,  by  its  anti-"trust," 
"tariff -revision"  crusades,  the  wily  plaintiff  every 
now  and  then  snatches  from  our  wage-producers. 
One  of  these  doctrinaires  came  off  of  a  European 
steamship  the  other  day,  probably  warm  from  the 
affectionate  embrace  of  the  German  Kaiser  and 
his  hypnotism  of  the  Sternberg  brand;  and  said 
doctrinaire  had  no  sooner  left  the  gang-plank 
than  an  Importing  Trust  newspaper  got  hold  of 
him  and  drew  from  him  these  wise  words : 


"I  think  that  the  present  temper  of  the  people  will 
demand  not  merely  the  usual  conventional  platform 
pledges,  but  something  definite  in  the  way  of  constructive 
legislation. 

"I  think  that,  in  the  first  place,  the  time  has  come 
when  the  Dingley  tariff  has  got  to  be  revised,  in  the  in- 
terest of  business  itself,  and  not  in  any  sense  as  an  attack 
on  business  or  as  a  disturbance  to  business.  It  seems 
to  me  clear  that  the  vast  majority  of  the  people  of  the 
country  of  all  parties  virtually  accept  the  protectionist 
principle,  but  financial  and  commercial  developments  of 
the  last  decade  make  it  necessary  to  face  without  delay  a 
revision  of  the  existing  tariff,  and  this  revision  not  to  be 
up — as  some  people  are  insane  enough  to  suppose — but 
down.  This  can  be  accomplished  without  the  s-ightest 
injury  to  business  if  it  is  done  in  a  fair-minded  and 
scientific  fashion.  The  expanding  business  of  the  coun- 
try needs  every  dollar  to  be  a  circulating  medium,  and 
the  collection  in  tariff  taxes  of  a  larger  surplus,  which  is 
withdrawn  from  the  normal  course  of  business,  and  offers 
a  constant  temptation  to  legislative  extravagance,  is  un- 
statesmanlike  and  uneconomic.  In  my  judgment,  there- 
fore, the  Eepublican  Party  will  be  held  by  the  voters  and 
all  the  best  sentiment  of  the  party  itself  to  a  definite 
pledge  of  tariff  revision." 

Oh,   your   Honors,   when    will   these   scholastic 
gentlemen,  who  don't  know  a  yard-stick  from  a 


306 

peck  measure,  learn  that  a  mortar-board  hat,  a 
student's  gown  and  a  dip  don't  give  them  any  li- 
cense to  "dip"  into  business  matters.  Fools  rush 
in  where  angels  fear  to  tread,  your  Honors,  and 
here  is  this  scion  of  a  great  college,  who  never  had 
anything  to  do  with  the  drafting  of  a  tariff  law  in 
the  world  and  knows  nothing  about  the  complex 
construction  of  the  Dingley  Dike,  saying  that  the 
Dike  can  be  "revised"  downwards  "without  the 
slightest  injury  to  business,"  "if  it  is  done  in  a 
fair-minded  and  scientific  fashion,"  when  men  who 
have  labored  over  the  question  for  years  and  years 
and  have  some  idea  of  the  sort  of  a  job  a  man 
has  to  tackle  when  he  tries  to  make  the  same 
stream  flow  up  hill  and  down  hill,  at  the  same 
place,  and  the  same  moment  of  time,  tremble  at 
the  mere  thought  of  it  and  know  as  they  know 
they  are  living  that  they  never  can  approach  that 
Dike  with  the  declared  purpose  of  "revising"  it 
downward  without  bringing  our  whole  business 
building  down  about  our  ears  in  a  single  night! 
But  the  hypocrisy  of  the  claim  of  this  chattel  of 
the  Importing  Trust,  that  he  believes  in  protection 
or  in  any  tariff-dike  that  will  save  American  in- 
dustry from  drowning,  appears  from  a  compari- 
son of  his  words  just  quoted  with  those  of  the 
Democratic  Party,  the  open  and  frank  enemy  of 
Protection,  as  set  out  in  its  national  platform  in 
1904: 

"We  denounce  protectionism  as  a  robbery  of  the  many 
to  enrich  the  few  and  we  favor  A  TARIFF  LIMITED  TO 
THE  NEEDS  OF  THE  GOVERNMENT  ECONOMIC- 
ALLY, EFFECTIVELY  AND  CONSTITUTIONALLY 
ADMINISTERED." 

Thus1,  the  Democratic  Party,  the  Party  of  abso- 
lute free  trade.     Now  listen  to  Dr.  Nixie  Butter, 


.307 

President  of  the  great  Columbarium  College,   as 
just  quoted: 

"The  expanding  business  of  the  country  needs  every 
dollar  to  be  a  circulating  medium,  AND  THE  COLLEC- 
TION IN  TARIFF  TAXES  OF  A  LARGER  SURPLUS, 
WHICH  IS  WITHDRAWN  FROM  THE  NORMAL 
COURSE  OF  BUSINESS  and  offers  a  constant  temptation 
to  legislative  extravagance,  is  unstatesmanlike  and  un- 
economic." 

Both  the  gentleman  of  the  cap  and  gown  and 
the  old  free  trade  donkey,  the  Democratic  Party, 
the  political  cats-paw    of    these    wily    plaintiffs, 
are   in   accord   in   the   statement   that   the   tariff 
should  be  no  larger  than  sufficient  for  the  "needs 
of    the    Government   economically   administered." 
And  the  gentleman  with  the  dip  thinks  the  sur- 
plus  in   the   Treasury   should  be   dipped   out  by 
drowning   American   industry   with   a  downward 
"revised"  dike — just  like  the  Importing  Trust  ex- 
actly— although  "revising"  the  dike  upward  would 
prevent  a  surplus  more   surely   than  a  "revision" 
downward.     Isn't  it  rather  a  singular  coincidence, 
your  Honors,  that,  if  this  gentleman  is  a  truly  and 
really   protectionist,    to    cut    off    the   surplus   he 
should  demand  the  sort  of  a  treatment  of  the  dike 
which  will  surely  throw  our  savings  bank  fund 
into  the  clutch  of  the  Importing  Trust,  instead 
of  a  treatment  which  would  as  surely  cut  off  that 
horrid  surplus  and  at  the  same  time  double  'our 
savings  bank  fund  in  a  few  years?     Are  you  a 
good  protectionist  of  your  garden  when  you  take 
down  the  fence  which  already  is  so  low  that  the 
cattle  reach  over  and  crop  the  ears  out  of  your 
sweet  corn,  rather  than  build  it  up  so  high  that 
the  cattle  cannot  steal  any  of  your  vegetables  at 
all.     If  you  did  not  see  the  face  of  the  man  who 
said  it  but  only  heard  him  say  through  an  opaque 


30& 

screen,  that  the  fence  of  such  a  garden  should  be 
taken  down  to  improve  the  drainage,  would  you 
not  think  it  was  the  owner  of  the  cattle  or  his 
man  Friday  who  spoke,  rather  than  the  owner  of 
the  garden,  your  Honors?  We  think  you  would 
think  it  was  the  party,  whoever  he  was,  who 
wanted  the  cattle  to  steal  more  corn  and  caU- 
bages,  if  he  said  that,  to  give  the  garden  better 
drainage,  the  fence  must  be  "revised"  downwards 
rather  than  upwards,  when  the  fence  had  nothing 
at  all  to  do  with  the  drainage.  And  this  is  what 
this  Dr.  Nixie  is  your  Honors,  simply  the  man 
Friday  of  the  Importing  Trust,  which  will  get 
our  whole  industrial  garden  the  moment  we  "re- 
vise" downward  the  Dingley  Dike. 

But  the  case  against  this  man  Friday  of  the  wily 
plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  is  still  worse, 
either  for  his  information  or  his  frankness,  when 
the  fact  is  known  that  there  is1  no  surplus 
in  the  Treasury  "withdrawn  from  the  normal 
course  of  business;"  and  for  the  reason  that, 
through  the  medium  of  the  banks  who  deposit 
bonds  to  secure  them,  these  surplus  treasury  funds 
are  sent  into  circulation  again  and  the  "business" 
of  the  country  does  not  suffer  at  all,  from  there 
being  such  a  surplus;  for  "business"  uses  it.  Fur- 
thermore, your  Honors',  the  surplus  in  the  Treas- 
ury, even  if  it  were  not  actually  in  business  circu- 
lation in  the  way  described,  being  less  than  $100,- 
000,000,  is  not  a  circumstance  to  the  reserves  held 
constantly  out  of  circulation  by  our  savings1  and 
other  banks.  If  keeping  money  from  circulation 
were  the  only  fault  to  find  with  this  tariff-dike 
which  is  the  life  and  soul  of  all  American  busi- 
ness, why  do  we  not  contrive  some  way  of  first 
getting  back  into  circulation  the  savings'  bank  and 


300 

other  reserves,  which  aggregate  ten  times  as  much 
as  the  Treasury  surplus  which  is  really  in  circu- 
lation?    Your  Honors,  when  there  are  so  many 
better  and  surer  ways  of  keeping  the  treasury  sur- 
plus in  circulation  than  drowning  out  American 
industry  through  a  "revised"  dike,    and    yet    the 
downward  "revision"  of  the  dike  is  said  to  be  the 
only  thing  for  the  case,  this  being  too  the  only 
method  by  which  the  dipping  out  of  the  treasury 
surplus  will  at  the  same  time  dip  out  the  people's 
savings  into  the  till  of  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Im- 
porting Trust,  it  does  look  as  if  the  real  object  of 
thus1  dipping  out  the  treasury    surplus    was    the 
turning  over  of  our  savings  fund  to  the  Importing 
Trust.     We  do  not  believe  college  presidents  are 
fools,  your  Honors.    We  would  far  rather  believe 
they  are  knaves  in  this  kind  of  tariff  "revision" 
talk,  and   we   frankly  do.     There   is   some  selfish 
interest  somewhere  in  their  horizon,  which  they 
think  will  be  better  served  by  standing  with  the 
Importing  Trust  than  with  the  American-Produc- 
tion party,  whether  that  interest  be  social  or  finan- 
cial ;  whether  it  be  the  fact  that  their  liberal  back- 
ers in  their  educational   ambitions  are  members 
of  the  Importing  Trust,  or  they  merely  want  their 
backs    comfortably  scratched  by  some   of   the   sa- 
vants,   chattels    of   the    Importing   Trust,    whose 
laudation  is  grateful  to  their  senses' — such  senses 
as  we  are  permitted  to  suppose  they  have,  after 
having  demonstrated  to  us  that  they  think  the  in- 
dustries of  this  country  can  be  drowned  dead  by 
a  tariff-dike  downward  revision  and  at  the  same 
lime  be  built  up  higher  by  a  tariff-dike  downward 
revision.     To  think  of  it,  your  Honors!     A  man 
trusted  to  teaching  the  young  ideas  of  this  country 
how  to  shoot,  who  does  not  honestly  know  that, 


310 

by  a  lower  tariff,  to  increase  competition  between 
a  cost-100  country  and  a  cost-20  world  is  to  destroy 
civilization  in  the  cost-100  country  by  exactly  the 
increase  in  competition!  Do  you  wonder,  your 
Honors,  that  we  charitably  said  this  man  did  not 
know  a  yard-stick  from  a  peck  measure?  And  yet 
this  is  the  kind  of  an  impressive  Buttinsky  which 
the  Importing  Trust  is  always  employing  to  stalk 
American  industries  with.  He  is  a  large  bass- 
drum  but  he  is  little  music.  He  may  impress  the 
boys  of  business;  but  the  grown-ups  don't  see  any- 
thing but  bombous  pomposity  in  his  sonorosity 
and  in  his  cap  and  gown;  and  as  for  his  dip,  it 
isn't  worth  in  business  as  much  as  a  single  one 
of  the  other  kind  of  dip  made  of  good  tallow. 

Have  you  ever  noticed,  your  Honors,  how  these 
wily  plaintiffs  and  their  chattels  loftily  ignore 
profits  as  the  mainspring  of  business  when  they 
are  snaring  in  the  people?  You  would  not  think  the 
Importing  Trust,  or  its  wily  associate  in  this  case, 
the  Exporting  Trust,  would  ever  stoop  to  so  "sel- 
fish" a  thing  as  a  profit.  For  when  an  American 
industry  objects  to  "revision"  downwards,  or  to 
a  reciprocity  treaty  because  either  would  surely 
take  the  profits  out  of  its  business,  the  wily  plain- 
tiffs, by  their  newspapers,  say  it  is  "selfish,"  it 
is  "narrow,"  and  it  would  set  back  a  great  good  to 
the  whole  country  just  to  save  its  own  contracted 
"interests."  If  an  American  industry  is  not  sel- 
fish in  the  direction  of  a  profit,  it  is  as  good  as 
a  dead  industry,  your  Honors.  And  the  American 
industry  that,  being  a  cost-100  industry,  did  not 
object  to  being  exposed  by  "revision"  or  "recipro- 
city" to  competition  with  a  cost-20  world  would 
be  worthy  of  its  fate.  Yet  these  wily  plaintiffs 
make  believe  the  world  is  not  so  made  up  that 


311 

the  first  business  of  any  one,  man  or  mouse,  is  to 
see  that  there  is  no  interruption  in  the  current 
of  food  into  his  stomach ;  and  these  wily  plaintiffs 
are  so  elusive,  appearing  now  as  a  missionary,  now 
as  a  clergyman,  and  again  as  a  college  president, 
or  a  professor  of  economics,  and  again  as  a  board 
of  trade,  or  a  manufacturers'  association,  with  all 
the  art  and  address  of  a  Mephistopheles,  that  they 
often  deceive  the  elect  themselves  and  cause  other- 
wise sound  and  sensible  people  to  fall  in  with  the 
idea  that  our  business  men  are  very  wicked  to  be  so 
"selfish"  as  to  stand  in  the  way  of  "the  greatest 
good  of  the  greatest  number"  and  incidentally  to 
the  flowing  of  our  savings  bank  fund  into  the  pock- 
fsts  of  these  wily  plaintiffs.  But,  nevertheless, 
your  Honors,  it  is  our  idea  that  this  whole  question 
as  to  our  tariff  dike  is  a  simple  business  question, 
for  business  men  to  settle.  It  is  upon  the  shoulders 
of  business  men  that  the  destinies  of  this  whole 
country  rest.  And  we  understand  a  business  man 
to  be  any  one,  man  or  woman,  who  is  directly  inter- 
ested in  our  great  client,  American  Production; 
and  this  covers  every  wage-producer,  every  prop- 
erty-producer, and  every  adjunct-producer  in  this 
country ;  and  these  embrace  our  whole  active  popu- 
lation. And  the  country's  pay-roll,  your  Honors,  as 
we  think  we  have  said  before,  is  not  merely  the  list 
of  our  wage-producers  who  are  employed  in  our 
various  industries,  but  it  is  the  entire  list  of  all  our 
active  people  covering  everybody  who  works  for  a 
return,  whether  you  call  it  wages,  salary  or  profits. 
And  our  wage-fund  is  the  entire  volume  of  money 
\\-liich  changes  hands1  from  day  to  day,  exchanged  by 
our  own  people  for  American  goods  or  for  American 
services  of  whatever  kind.  From  this  standpoint 
of  ours  the  wage-volume  is  the  business-volume  of 


312 

the  country.  Now,  your  Honors,  you  cannot  "re- 
vise" our  tariff-dike  downwards  against  the  cost-20 
world  and  oppose  its  raging  flood  of  surplus  cost-20 
with  our  cost-100  products  without  supplanting  the 
services  of  millions  of  our  workers  by  the  services 
of  workers  abroad,  to  the  abrupt  contraction  of  our 
pay-roll,  our  wage-fund,  and  our  business-volume. 
And,  on  the  other  hand,  to  save  your  lives,  you  can- 
not build  our  tariff-dike  to  heaven  without  shutting 
out  foreign  goods,  employing  our  own  people  at 
higher  wages,  and  increasing  the  wage- fund,  the 
wage-volume  and  the  business-volume  at  the  same 
time.  From  circumference  to  centre,  from  bark  to 
pith,  and  from  pith  back  to  bark  again,  this  Ameri- 
can forest  monarch  is  a  business  tree  and  the  dead- 
liest woodsmen  in  our  whole  horizon,  who  threaten 
with  the  sharpest  of  axes,  to  reduce  our  tree  to  com- 
mercial logs,  are  these  wily  plaintiffs,  the  Import- 
ing Trust  and  the  Exporting  Trust. 


XXVII 

THE  OBJECT  OF  THE  PRESENT  SUIT  IS  NOT  ONLY  TO 
ENJOIN  THE  PLAINTIFFS  AGAINST  THE  FUETHER 
PROSECUTION  OF  THEIR  NEFARIOUS  TRADE  BUT  AS 
WELL  TO  DETERMINE  AN  INTELLIGENT  PLAN  OF 
NATIONAL  DEVELOPMENT. 

May  it  please  your  Honors,  we  are  loath  to  trench 
further  upon  your  valuable  time  in  this  matter;  but 
we  feel  that,  in  passing  upon  the  merits  of  the  di- 
verse contentions  here  adduced,  all  we  have  said 
would  be  of  small  value  to  this  Court  unless  we  at 
least  made  an  attempt  to  formulate  some  system 


313 

according  to  which  we  may  live  in  the  future.  Your 
Honors,  the  desire  of  every  nation,  considered  as  a 
concrete  entity,  must  be  to  go  forward  to  a  more 
prosperous  condition;  and  to  put  away  from  na- 
tional experience  as  far  as  possible  all  those  vicissi- 
tudes which  in  the  unripe  past  have  now  and  again 
brought  the  nation  to  weakness,  despair  and  in- 
ternal woe.  But  the  nation,  as  a  nation,  seems  to 
have  no  memory,  your  Honors;  and  no  matter 
through  what  dreadful  experience  it  may  have 
passed,  and  no  matter  how  obvious1  are  the  causes 
by  avoiding  which  such  experiences  never  could 
have  taken  place,  or  could  take  place  again,  the  na- 
tion as  a  nation  sees  them  not.  Considered  as  a 
nation,  it  has  no  association  of  ideas1,  no  recording 
brain-cells.  And  that  accounts  for  the  fact  that, 
knowing  their  book  and  their  role,  after  having 
cast  the  country  into  the  depths  of  distress  as  they 
have  done  many  times,  and  after  having  plundered 
our  people  so  cruelly  that  at  last  they  have  arisen 
in  their  blind  might,  cast  out  the  plaintiffs,  or 
either  of  them,  and  once  more  built  the  broken 
dike  anew,  these  wily  plaintiffs,  particularly  the 
wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  await  with 
such  certainty  and  serenity  the  lapse  of  a  few  brief 
years  ere  renewing  their  assault  upon  the  people's 
citadel,  the  tariff-dike,  knowing  full  well  that,  when 
a  comparatively  short  time  has  passed,  those  who 
took  part  with  most  pangs  and  heart-wrenchings 
in  the  last  industrial  funeral  will  have  passed  away 
or  have  left  but  a  minority  of  their  like  behind ;  and 
others,  young  and  foolish,  with  no  recollection  of 
the  vivid  destruction  which  attended  the  last  suc- 
cess of  these  wily  plaintiffs,  will  have  come  into  the 
places  of  power  to  control  the  fate  of  this  devoted 


314 

land ;  and  that  upon  these  fresh  and  fervid  young 
uiinds,  largely  suffering  from  megalocephalus 
adolescens,  they  can  make  anew  the  warm  impres- 
sion of  enviousness  and  covetousness,  by  pointing 
to  the  "trusts,"  our  client,  American  Production, 
as  the  source  of  the  greenness  of  our  new  and  suc- 
culent crop  of  voters,  and  the  condition  which  com- 
pels them  to  earn  their  money  before  spending  it 
for  lollipops.  It  is  in  this  way,  because  the  nation 
has  no  memory,  and  because  men  with  memories 
must  dwindle  and  die,  that  these  fell  disturbers  of 
our  happiness  and  wreckers  of  our  homes  are  en- 
able to  get  one  inning  after  another  before  our 
people,  and  knock  the  ball  over  the  fence.  They 
have  reduced  the  operation  to  an  exact  science. 
They  know  just  how  long  to  lie  low  after  the  last 
robbery;  just  when  to  crawl  into  view  again,  and 
just  when  and  how  strongly  to  turn  on  the  cam- 
paign for  tariff  "revision";  just  how  many  college 
professors  and  other  heavy  intellectual  guns  they 
need  to  have  interviewed,  with  their  portraits  in  the 
papers,  emitting  fire,  smoke,  lava,  and  red-hot  cin- 
ders against  the  "exploded  fallacy  of  protection;" 
just  when  to  turn  on  the  full  newspaper  chorus 
against  the  "trusts"  and  the  psychological  moment 
at  which  to  say,  "The  people  are  sternly  demanding 
an  early  revision  of  the  tariff,"  a  Ja  Dr.  Nixie  But- 
iusky.  President,  etc.  And  it  is  because  we  older 
fry  must  soon  pass  from  the  scene  and  leave  our 
youngsters  to  be  preyed  upon  and  victimized,  as 
we  ourselves  before  them  were  preyed  upon  and  vic- 
timized, by  this  brace  of  arch  bunco-steerers  and 
green-goods  men,  the  Importing  and  Exporting 
Trusts,  that  we  desire  to  inaugurate  a  system  where- 
by th<>  younger  generation  may  be  uniformly  in- 


315 

structed  in  this  most  momentous  matter  and  avoid 
falling  into  the  net  of  these  century-old  conspira- 
tors, these  wily  plaintiffs,  the  only  remaining  slave- 
traders  of  the  world,  against  whose  lust  for  trade 
even  our  cradles  are  not  safe. 

To  this  end,  your  Honors,  we  desire  to  formulate 
such  a  statement  of  the  true  conditions'  of  trade  in 
this  world  as  will  appeal  to  the  understanding  of 
every  fairly  intelligent  person,  of  whatever  sex, 
color,  or  previous  condition  of  ignorance  and  con- 
ceil.  And  this  is  the  direction  our  efforts  shall 
take. 

The  one  thing  needful  for  national  prosperity  is 
a  plenty  of  opportunities  to  produce  at  wages  in 
order  to  consume  at  prices.  In  fact,  these  oppor- 
tunities to  work  are  the  only  condition  of  our  exist- 
ence. But,  fortunately,  the  natural  desires  and 
necessities1  of  humanity  furnish  these  opportunities; 
jiml  the  opportunities  arising  in  every  community 
from  this  cause  are  sufficient  to  furnish  the  people 
of  the  communities  all  the  opportunities  necessary 
<o  -enrn  the  livelihood  of  that  community.  All 
that  takes'  place  is,  by  means  of  money  or  wages,  the 
exchange  among  the  people  of  the  opportunities  to 
work  furnished  by  the  people.  In  producing  a  cer- 
tain form  of  goods,  each  worker  works  for  himself 
directly  and  for  all  the  rest  of  the  community  by 
proxy.  In  other  words,  each  worker  is  the  active 
si  gent  of  production  of  the  entire  community.  If 
all  communities  had  attached  to  them  a  sufficient 
amount  of  soil  and  of  forest  and  mining  land,  to 
produce  the  food  and  the  basic  materials  of  produc- 
tion for  the  community,  and  if  no  part  of  the  prod- 
uct were  squandered  in  foreign  trade,  and  no  draft 
on  local  labor  were  cancelled  by  an  invading  for- 
eign supply  nothing  could  prevent  each  such  com- 


316 

munity  from  being  forever  in  the  midst  of  plenty 
and  happiness.  There  would  not  be  excessive 
wealth  on  the  one  hand  nor  great  poverty  on  the 
other.  The  trouble  with  us  is  we  did  not  know 
enough  to  begin  this  way.  We  are  away  off  the 
track ;  and  to  get  on  the  track  will  cost  a  good  deal 
of  steady  work.  To  get  on  the  track  would  need  a 
prohibitory  dike  against  incoming  foreign  supply 
and  a  prohibitory  dam  against  outgoing  domestic 
supply.  That  would  bring  us  around  automatically 
and  in  a.  jiffy  to  the  ideal  condition  of  which  we 
have  just  spoken.  Let  us  see  why  from  a  very  cold 
business  point  of  view  we  need  that  dike  against 
foreign  supply. 

We  have  to  have  property-producers  employing 
wage-producers,  do  we  not?  And  property-pro- 
ducers will  work  in  our  country  if  they  can  make 
as  good  a  profit  there  as  elsewhere,  or  a  little 
better,  will  they  not?  Well,  what  would  happen 
to  their  capital  if,  having  settled  among  us  we 
by  a  low  dike  exposed  them  for  their  cost-100 
goods  to  cost-20  foreign  competition?  Would  not 
their  capital  go  abroad  in  the  form  of  payments 
for  goods  sold  our  people  by  the  wily  plaintiff, 
the  Importing  Trust?  At  any  rate,  in  competi- 
tion with  cost-20  goods  the  capital  laid  out  in  cost- 
100  goods  would  not  get  back  to  our  property-pro- 
ducers. That  part  of  their  capital  represented 
by  the  labor-cost  in  their  goods,  would  be  spent 
in  our  markets  by  our  wage-produr-ers  for  Im- 
porting Trust  cost-20  goods,  and  would  go  out  of 
the  country  to  the  property-producers  abroad, 
whose  capital  and  whose  profits  would  thus  get 
back  to  them  in  the  shape  of  the  capital  of  our 
own  property-producers  which  had  been  spent  as 
wages;  and  the  cost-100  goods  made  by  our  prop- 


sir 

erty-producers  would  either  remain  unsold  or  be 
sold  at  cost-20  also,  and  so  at  a  loss  of  80%  of  the 
actual  cost.  But  in  any  event,  a  tariff-dike  down*- 
ward-"revision"  would  end  with  the  lodging  of 
our  capital  in  the  cost-20  world  outside.  For 
what  our  sensible  property-producers  would  do, 
the  moment  a  downward  "revision"  by  Congress 
was  certain,  would  be  to  close  all  their  factories 
and  take  what  capital  they  could  *?ave  and  go 
abroad  with  it  in  to  the  cost-20  world,  build  plants 
there  and  join  the  general  assault  upon  our  sav- 
ings-bank fund;  then  when  our  people  had  awak- 
ened from  their  hypnotic  slumber  and  realized 
that  our  "trusts"  were  American  Production  as 
a  whole;  and  had  once  more  driven  the  money- 
changers of  these  wily  plaintiffs  from  the  Tem- 
ple of  American  Industry  and  banged  the  door 
shut  with  a  tariff-dike  higher  than  ever,  our  ex- 
iled property-producers,  having  saved  some  of  our 
money  for  us  by  joining  the  Importing  Trust  in 
its  looting  of  our  treasure  house,  could  come  back 
and  open  their  American  factories  again. 

As  wo  have  said  before,  there  is  no  doubt  that 
many  of  our  property-producers  have  already 
started  factories  abroad,  both  to  get  inside  the 
ta  riff  -dikes  of  foreign  countries,  and  to  be  ready 
for  a  "revision"  of  our  dike  and  to  share  in  the  bene- 
fit of  joining  the  Importing  Trust.  It  seems  to  us, 
vonr  Honors,  as  if  we  had  clearly  shown  that  capi- 
tal cannot  work  in  a  cost-100  country  in  competi- 
tion with  a  cost-20  world.  And  it  also  seems  to 
us  that  unless  capital  settles  in  the  place  'of  the 
lowest  cost  of  its1  goods,  it  will  be  in  danger  of  be- 
in  o-  scattered  in  the  way  we  have  described  in  our 
own  case.  We,  therefore,  submit  the  folowing  prin- 
ciple as  the  first  of  our  general  system : 


318 

1.  Capital  desiring  a  given  market  for  its  output  must 
finally  locate  in  the  area  of  lowest  cost  of  production  for 
that  market. 

It  would  seein  to  us,  your  Honors,  that  any  na- 
tion looking  for  the  philosopher's  stone  of  pros- 
perity, would  be  attracted  by  the  principle  just 
stated.  For  a  nation's  prosperity  must  surely  be 
directly  in  proportion  to  the  proportion,  distribu- 
ted among  its  own  workers,  of  the  opportunities 
to  work  caused  by  the  needs  of  its  own  people; 
and  to  have  such  opportunities  to  work,  it  must 
have  within  its  borders  enough  busy  capital  en- 
gaged in  property-production  to  employ  the  great- 
est possible  number  of  its  wage-producers.  But 
to  have  such  busy  capital  some  steps  must  be 
taken  to  protect  it  against  imports  from  countries 
whose  cost  is  lower,  whether  from  climate,  from 
greater  industrial  maturity  or  from  cheap  wage- 
producers.  The  device  which  has  been  generally 
adopted  to  take  away  from  foreign  property-pro- 
ducers their  advantage  in  lower  cost,  is  that  of  a 
tariff-dike,  such  as  our  own.  But  whether  the  tar- 
iffs of  other  countries,  by  being  so  high  as  to 
make  the  home  country  the  area  of  lowest  cost  'of 
production,  have  answered  the  principle  or  not, 
our  own  tariff-dike  has  never  risen  to  that  height 
of  common  sense;  for  its  only  obiect,  as  declared 
bv  leading  lights  of  the  Republican  Party,  is  to 
oqualize  the  foreign  wage-cost  with  the  American 
and  not  to  give  the  American  a  better  chance  in 
his  own  market.  The  American  has  been  too  hos- 
T>itable:  he  has  stood  up  so  straight  in  his  hospi- 
talitv  that  he  has  leaned  over  backward  and  been 
foolishly  and  at  least  not  humanely  unjust  to 
himself.  There  is  no  good  reason  whv  the  people 
of  a  country  should  not  be  best  entitled  to  their 


319 

own  country  and  the  to  al  wealth  represented  by 
its  domestic  market.  But  our  property-producers, 
and  through  them  our  wage-producers,  by  fixing 
our  tariff-dike  only  high  enough  to  give  Ameri- 
cans as  good  a  right  to  their  own  market  as  peo- 
ple abroad,  are  left  exposed  to  a  destructive  com- 
petition from  a  cost-20  world.  The  fine  Italian 
hand  of  the  Importing  Trust,  the  wily  plaintiff 
herein,  is1  visible  in  this,  your  Honors.  It  never 
slumbers  or  sleeps;  and  its  lobbies  in  Washington 
fight  every  inch  of  the  ground  which  American 
Production  tries  to  wrench  from  it,  even  though 
our  client  struggles  for  but  the  merest  justice  to 
our  property  and  wage-producers.  And  so  our 
tariff -dike  is  built  so  low  that  every  improvement 
or  economj"  in  methods  of  production  abroad  is 
reflected  in  a  great  deluge  of  foreign  goods  bound- 
ing over  the  dike  and  sowing  the  seeds  of  idleness 
and  hard  times  among  our  workers.  A  merely 
protective  tariff  of  this  nature  can  have  no  place 
in  a  scientific  system  aiming  at  continued  pros- 
perity. For  since  it  is  only  a  set-off  for  the  time 
Iming  against  lower  wages  abroad,  without  leav- 
ing any  margin  against  advantages  to  foreign  pro- 
ducers in  more  compact  organization  or  cheap- 
er materials,  it  may  leave  our  market  exposed  to 
a  frightful  inundation  within  any  given  twenty- 
four  hours.  An  inundation  of  this  sort  is  going 
on  now,  even  while  our  college  presidents  are  opin- 
ing that  the  tariff-dike  should  be  "revised"  down- 
wards1. Yea,  your  Honors,  we  have  truly  spoken 
in -saying  that  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing 
Trust  never  slumbers  or  sleeps.  It  never  for  a 
single  second  in  the  year  takes  its  eye  off  of  our 
savings-bank  fund.  It  is  a  burglar  that  never  for- 
gets its  burgle. 


320 

The  principle  we  have  just  stated,  jour  Honors, 
as  to  the  necessary  location  of  capital  where  it  can 
get  the  lowest  cost  in  production,  applies  universal- 
ly; but  it  does  not  hint  to  us  any  rule  to  follow 
in  determining  whether  its  operation  at  any  given 
point  would  be  harmful  to  capital  located  there. 
We  know  as  a  fact  that  captial  cannot  remain 
fixed  at  any  point  except  where  other  capital  can- 
not undercut  its  market.  It  must  graviate,  as 
a  matter  of  course,  to  the  area  affording  the  lowest 
cost  of  production  for  its  market.  But,  as  a  final 
proposition,  where  must  these  areas  of  lowest  cost 
be?  Why,  your  Honors,  where  else  than  the  places 
where  cost  of  subsistence  is  the  lowest?  Of  course, 
your  Honors,  there  is  subsistence  and  subsistence. 
There  is  subsistence  for  the  man  and  subsistence  for 
the  mouse;  and  our  profound  political  economists 
tell  us  that  it  pays  better  to  feed  the  large,  intelli- 
gent, active  man  than  it  does'  the  smaller  and  more 
ignorant  one,  even  though  the  latter  eats  but  a  frac- 
tion as  much;  because  the  larger  and  better  man 
does  enough  more  work  to  pay  for  the  difference  in 
the  food  bill.  But  then,  your  Honors,  we  may  dis- 
count differences  in  individual  workmen  and  say 
that,  when  we  say  that  his  cost  of  subsistence  is 
the  cost  of  his  production,  the  workman  to  whom 
we  refer  is  the  perfect  workman  in  his  craft,  when 
the  last  word  has  been  said  and  the  last  deed  done 
towards  making  the  workman  just  muscular,  skil- 
ful, and  intelligent  enough  to  do  the  greatest 
amount  of  work  on  the  least  subsistence,  a  greater 
amount  of  muscle,  skill,  or  intelligence  being  of  no 
advantage  and  a  subsistence  better  either  in  qual- 
ity or  quantity  being  of  no  avail.  This  being  grant- 
ed, then,  our  next  step  is  to  inquire  how  to  deter- 
mine where  these  favored  places  of  lowest  cost  of 


321 

subsistence  are.  Of  course,  the  answer  must  be, 
Those  places  where  soils  are  the  richest  and  deepest, 
where  suns  are  the  kindest  and  most  constant,  and 
where  agriculture  is  most  mature.  Now,  as  to  the 
specific  localities  where  these  soils  and  suns  are  to 
be  found,  we  can  only  make  a  broad  general  rule. 
We  know  that  soil  is  simply  animal  and  vegetable 
mold;  that  is,  the  remains  of  organic  life;  and  nat- 
urally such  mold  will  be  the  deepest  and  richest 
where  organic  life  is  and  for  a  long  time  has  been 
the  most  abundant.  But  these  localities  must  also 
be  where  suns  are  kind  and  constant;  for  the  sun's 
heat  is  at  the  root  of  all  organic  life,  and  might 
almost  be  said  to  be  its  creator  and  sustainer. 

Aside  from  food,  the  sun's  heat,  too,  whether 
greater  or  less,  figures  in  the  cost  of  subsistence; 
for  the  cost  of  clothing  and  shelter  vary  with  it. 
Here,  then,  is  a  clue  for  us  to  follow;  and  if  we 
find  where  the  sun  is  the  kindest  and  most  con- 
stant, we  will  know  where  the  cost  of  subsistence 
is  naturally  the  lowest;  and  to  do  this  in  a  broad 
general  way  is  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world.  For 
if  we  are  north  of  the  equator,  all  we  have  to  do  is 
to  travel  towards  the  south  to  learn  that,  as  we  go, 
the  sun  becomes  stronger  and  stronger,  summer 
longer  and  longer,  and,  as  a  matter  of  course,  win- 
ters become  shorter  and  shorter,  until  we  have 
passed  the  tropical  line  and  come  to  a  land  of  per- 
petual summer.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  should 
turn  about  and  go  northward,  we  would  find  shorter 
and  shorter  summers  and  longer  and  longer  winters 
until  we  arrived  at  a  point  of  perpetual  ice  and 
snow.  Now  remembering  that  degrees  of  latitude 
are  counted  from  1  at  the  equator  to  90  at  the  poles, 
we  can  easily  state  the  rule,  cost  of  subsistence 
varies  directly  with  the  latitude  between  the  poles 


322 

and  the  tropics.  This  is  a  very-  broad,  general  rule 
which  we  may  use  later,  remembering  in  connection 
with  it  that,  within  the  tropics,  at  least  theoretic- 
ally, there  is  a  uniformity  of  solar  heat  and  of  fer- 
tile soil. 

But  we  are  still  very  imperfect  in  methods  of 
production.  We  are  unripe  industrial  creatures; 
and  wrages  the  world  over  vary  in  the  degree  to 
which  they  return  to  wage-producers  the  muscular 
and  nervous  fibre  consumed  in  producing;  this  in- 
equality arising  from  the  wray  in  which  our  present 
system  abandons  helpless  workers  to  the  results  of 
that  withering  competition  between  merchants, 
which  plays  one  man's  worst  necessities  against  an- 
other's; and  because  of  these  things  we  must  no- 
tice that  pay-rolls  vary,  not  uniformly  according  to 
cost  of  subsistence,  but  according  to  the  degree  of 
congestion  of  wage-producers  upon  the  various 
fields  of  industry,  and  the  degree  to  which  foreign 
competition  has  been  added  to  crowd  wage-produc- 
ers to  a  point  where  they  are  gradually  being  de- 
fibred  and  exterminated;  which,  as  the  result  of 
Free  Trade,  is  the  case  of  so  many  British  workers 
at  the  present  time.  It  is  very  plain  that  before  the 
industrial  world  has  fought  out  its  battle  and  all 
methods  of  production  become  the  same  and  wage- 
producers  have  been  brought  to  a  uniform  condi- 
tion, there  will  be  a  long  time  in  which  cost  of  sub- 
sistence will  not  correspond  to  the  pay-roll,  and 
that,  as  far  as  the  property-producer  is  concerned, 
it  would  be  nearer  the  truth  to  say,  The  cost  of  the 
pay-roll  is  the  cost  of  production,  than  to  say,  Cost 
of  subsistence  is  the  cost  of  production,  although,  in 
the  fullness  of  time,  the  latter  statement  will  be  uni- 
versally true.  For  the  present,  therefore,  it  will  be 
correct  to  say  that  the  pay-roll  represents  the  cost 


323 

of  subsistence;  that  is,  such  subsistence  as  the  wage- 
producer  may  enjoy.  Now,  inasmuch  as  it  is  the 
wages  paid  to  producers  and  spent  by  them  in  the 
market  which  exactly  determines  the  volume  of 
"business,"  the  pay-roll  is  the  measure  of  a  coun- 
try's business.  We  are  now  ready  to  draft  the  next 
section  of  our  rule  or  "law"  indicating  the  move- 
ment of  capital,  something  in  this  form: 

2.  Cost  of  subsistence  is  cost  of  production  and  is 
represented  by  pay-rolls,  which  are  the  measure  of  what 
is  called  "business." 

And  from  what  we  discussed  together  a  few  mo- 
ments ago,  we  may  add  another  section,  like  this : 

3.  Outside  of  the  tropics,  naked  cost  of  subsistence 
varies  directly  with  latitude;  while  within  the  tropics  it 
is  uniform  and  lowest. 

Ah,  your  Honors,  we  hear  once  more  the  sneer- 
ing yet  musical  titter  of  counsel  for  these  wily 
plaintiffs;  and  again  comes  the  stage  whisper  of 
counsel  for  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust, 
saying  that,  because  the  enervating  climate  of  the 
tropics  kills  energy,  the  tropics  never  have  com- 
peted and  never  can  compete  with  the  temperate 
zones.  This  is  only  a  continuance  of  the  tickling 
tactics  of  these  wily  plaintiffs  by  which  they  try  to 
make  us  so  pleased  with  ourselves  and  them  that 
we  will  tear  down  our  tariff-dike  and  add  to  their 
private  fortunes.  But  we  have  a  few  remarks  to  re- 
ply to  this  tickle  which  we  beg  humbly  to  submit. 

In  the  first  place,  what  man  has  done,  man  can 
do.  Massive  ruins  long  buried  in  the  tropics  cause 
us  to  wonder  why,  if  man  did  I  hat  sort  of  work  in 
the  tropics  in  times  past,  he  cannot  do  as  well  or 
better  now.  Is  the  sleeping  sickness  any  worse  in 
the  tropics  now  than  then? 


324 

In  the  second  place,  there  are  now  living  in  the 
tropics1  many,  many  millions  of  strong,  industrious 
and  intelligent  workers,  upon  whom  the  torrid  heat 
makes  no  apparent  impression  for  the  worse.  They 
are  called  coolies.  They  do  anything  in  the  world 
you  ask  them  to  do  and  do  it  well.  And  they  do  it 
for  from  2c.  to  lOc.  a  day. 

In  the  third  place,  it  is  found  that  it  is  not  the 
heat  but  bad  insects,  miasmas,  and  habits,  which 
make  the  tropics  worse  for  whites  than  blacks ;  and 
that  all  these  things  can  be  so  corrected  as  to  make 
the  tropics  as  healthful  for  the  Caucasian  as  the 
temperate  zones.  On  this  subject,  Col.  William  C. 
Gorgas,  of  our  boys  in  khaki,  spoke,  in  June,  1907, 
at  Cornell  University,  as  follows: 

"I  think  that  sanitation  can  now  show  that  any  popu- 
lation coming  into  the  tropics  can  protect  itself  against 
disease  by  measures  that  are  both  simple  and  inexpensive; 
that  life  in  the  tropics  will  be  more  healthful  than  in  the 
temperate  zones;  and  that  gradually  within  the  next  two 
or  three  centuries  tropical  countries,  which  offer  a  much 
greater  return  for  a  man's  labor  than  do  the  temperate 
zones,  will  be  settled  by  the  white  races,  and  that  again 
the  centres  of  wealth,  civilization  and  population  will  be 
in  the  tropics,  as  they  were  in  the  dawn  of  history,  rather 
than  in  the  temperate  zones  as  at  present." 

In  his  report  on  health  conditions  upon  the  Isth- 
mus for  July,  1907,  dated  August  14,  at  Ancon,  the 
same  gentleman  says: 

"There  has  been  no  quarantinable  disease  of  any  kind 
originating  on  the  Isthmus.  The  last  case  of  yellow  fever 
in  the  city  of  Panama  occurred  in  November,  1905, 
twenty  months  ago;  the  last  case  on  the  Isthmus  in  May, 
1906,  fourteen  months  ago." 

And  this  report  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  there 
were  there  on  the  Isthmus  38,000  men  digging  the 
Big  Canal,  exposed  to  those  terrible  tropical  suns 
of  which,  when  it  pooh-poohs  our  dike  as  a  protec- 


325 

tion  against  tropical  production,  the  Importing 
Trust  makes  so  much.  The  same  report  says  that 
the  death  rate  among  the  Canal  employes  for  1907 
was  but  16  per  thousand,  a  mortality  but  a  little 
over  one-third  as  high  as  that  of  Shreveport,  Louis- 
iana, in  this  land  which  turns  up  its  nose  so  high  at 
the  sickliness  of  the  tropics. 

So  much  for  this  expert's  opinion  and  for  his  offi- 
cial report  on  this  subject;  but  can  we  not  add 
something  from  our  own  experience?  Even  now, 
without  any  special  measures  to  improve  tropical 
health,  can  the  worst  tropical  countries  in  the  world 
be  much  worse  than  our  own  climate,  with  its  siz- 
zling heat  in  summer  and  its  wizzening  cold  in 
winter?  Will  not  our  heat  prostrations,  our  chol- 
era morbuses  and  general  debility  of  summer,  and 
our  throat  and  pulmonary  diseases  of  winter  run 
tropical  fatalities  pretty  close? 

In  the  fourth  place,  all  tropical  countries  of  any 
extent  can  show  us  high  table-lands,  where  even 
Caucasians,  without  any  acclimatizing,  can  work 
with  the  greatest  comfort  and  safety;  and,  in  the 
tropics  as  a  whole,  there  is  a  total  of  such  table- 
lands large  enough  for  all  the  factories  on  earth 
at  the  present  time,  with  enough  such  lands  left 
over  to  accommodate  the  world's  growth  for  a  thou- 
sand years ;  and  these  factory  sites  are  only  a  half- 
hour's  trolley  ride  from  levels  where  food  is  grown 
in  true  tropical  cheapness. 

In  the  fifth  place,  with  the  tropics  remaining  as 
unhealthful  as  counsel  for  the  wily  paintiffs  now 
say  they  are,  tariff-dike  "revision"  would  compel 
wage-producers  to  look  for  work  in  such  countries. 
For  here  and  there  the  tropics  would  be  exploited 
by  industrial  captains  from  the  temperate  zones 
where  competition  had  become  sharp,  who  would 


326 

cut  into  temperate-zone  markets  and  throw  wage- 
producers  out  of  employment;  and  these  wage-pro- 
ducers thus  made  idle  and  without  hope  of  re-em- 
ployment at  home,  even  though  the  chances  of  long 
life  in  the  tropic's  were  against  them,  would  wander 
in  greater  or  less  numbers  into  tropical  countries 
and  take  up  work  there.  For  even  in  this  and 
other  non-tropical  countries,  people  work  in  sugar 
refineries,  in  steamship  holds,  at  needle  grinding, 
and  steel  puddling,  and  in  other  deadly  employ- 
ments, well  knowing  that  their  work  will  kill  them 
soon.  And  why  would  not  desperately  idle  wage- 
producers  risk  the  tropics? 

So  much  for  the  littleness  of  the  tropics  as  an 
adversary  of  temperate  climates. 

But  again  the  quiet  cackle  of  the  learned  counsel 
for  the  Importing  Trust.  He  whispers  that  to  be- 
lieve wha.t  we  say  about  cost  of  production  varying 
directly  with  latitude  would  make  the  South  in  our 
country  the  early  ruler  of  us  all.  And  so  it  will 
prove,  your  Honors;  in  wealth  and  population.  But 
the  population  will  go  there  from  abroad,,  as  it  is 
going  now ;  and  from  the  North,  as  it  is  also  going 
now.  Let  the  tariff-dike  be  raised  higher  instead  of 
cut  down  lower,  and  our  own  Sunny  South  will 
bloom  as  never  before.  She  can  coin  her  climate 
into  shining  ducats  and,  if  the  dear  girl  pleases,  with 
her  golden  stores,  soon  purchase  the  whole  bleak 
North  at  auction. 

And  the  gravitation  of  our  Northern  capital  and 
population  to  the  South  will  keep  on  until  the  South 
is  the  centre  and  hub  of  all  the  wealth,  intelligence, 
and  beauty  of  this  country;  and  the  tide  will  never 
turn  until,  population  becoming  over-dense  there, 
the  price  of  land  will  rise  and  so  raise  the  cost  of 
production  in  the  South  that  the  portions  of  the 


327 

country  nearest  its  confines  can  produce  as  cheaply 
as  there;  whereupon  population  will  become  dense 
also  in  the  new  region ;  and  so  margin  after  margin 
next  to  the  densest  population  will  be  taken  up  and 
made  as  dense,  until  the  whole  country  will  have  be- 
come homogeneous  in  wealth  and  population.  With 
a  higher  tariff-dike  and  the  cutting  off  of  Cuban, 
Porto  Rican,  Hawaiian,  and  Philippine  competition, 
this  must  be  the  natural  course.  But  cut  down  the 
dike  ever  so  little  and  tropical  cheapness  will  over- 
shadow our  South  as  it  does  our  North  and  its  day 
of  glory  will  be  indefinitely  postponed. 

And,  your  Honors,  "revise"  downwards  the  tariff 
dikes  of  all  countries,  and  you  make  the  whole  trop- 
ical belt  the  "Sunny  South"  of  the  earth,  and  all  the 
capital  of  the  world  would  gravitate  thither  and 
all  the  movable  population  would  follow.  Unless 
la  riff-dikes  were  universally  restored  as  against  the 
tropics,  the  destruction  to  life  and  to  property  val- 
ues in  the  temperate  zones  would  be  cataclysmal. 
The  mortality  among  the  young  and  the  adult  weak 
would  bo  like  a  continuous  massacre.  And  the  mi- 
gration on  the  one  hand  and  the  slaughter  on  the 
oilier  would  go  on  until  nothing  was  left  of  the  tem- 
perate /cones  but  wildernesses  inhabitaled  by  sav- 
ages, with  faint  traditions  of  civilization;  and  the 
wildernesses  would  be  owned  by  absent  grandees 
and  ruled  by  hired  cut-throats  from  medieval  for- 
tresses and  castles.  This  is  a  sure  thing,  your 
Honors;  and  what  can  wo  think  of  our  people,  if, 
at  the  command  of  the  Importing  Trust,  and  to 
take  refuge  from  our  client.  American  Production, 
they  consent  to  go  a  single  inch  along  that  down- 
hill road! 

To  return  now  to  the  construction  of  our  system, 
wo  are  a  ware,  vonr  Honors  that  what  wo  have  said 


328 

is  a  broad  generalization.  Cost  of  production  cer- 
tainly must  vary  with  latitude  in  the  average  case ; 
but  we  shall  anticipate  the  next  chuckle  of  wily 
plaintiff's  counsel  and  say  that  as  between  any  given 
area  in  the  tropics  and  a  similar  area  outside  of  the 
tropics ;  or  between  similar  areas,  one  in  a  lower  and 
the  other  in  a  higher  latitude,  other  circumstances 
than  latitude,  which  we  shall  call  "handicaps," 
might  even  give  the  higher  latitude  the  advantage. 
And  we  are  also  aware  that,  as  to  countries  some 
of  which  have  high  and  others  low  wages,  because 
of  one  circumstance  or  another,  those  of  the  high 
wages  may  produce  some  kinds  of  goods  more  cheap- 
ly than  those  of  the  low.  Now,  your  Honors,  in 
view  of  what  has  been  said,  there  seem  to  us  to 
be  three  general  cases  in  which  capital  must  gravi- 
tate from  one  country  to  another,  or,  even  in  the 
same  country,  from  one  place  to  another.  These 
three  cases  are  where  the  competing  countries  are 
in  the  same  latitude;  where  they  are  in  different- 
latitudes  ;  and  where  there  is  a  tropical  area  in  one 
or  both  countries.  But  considering  the  fact  that 
there  are  "handicaps"  which  may  rob  latitudes  and 
low  pay-rolls  of  their  advantages,  before  stating 
these  three  cases,  we  must  provide  for  exceptions 
to  our  rule.  This  we  do  by  this  paragraph  : 

4.  If  differences  between  pay-rolls  or  latitudes  in  com- 
peting areas  of  production  be  not  offset  by  handicaps,  the 
following  will  be  true: 

And  we  will  follow  this  saving  clause  with  the 
three  cases  described.    And  the  first  one  is  this : 

A.  If  such  areas  are  in  the  same  average  latitude,  capi- 
tal will  gravitate  towards  the  lowest  pay-rolls.  The 
higher  pay-rolls  will  contract,  while  the  lower  will  expand, 
until  pay-rolls  and  their  incident  business  have  become 
equalized  throughout  the  competing  areas, 


329 

As  we  have  said  before,  this  migration  of  capital 
may  take  place  within  the  boundaries  of  a  single 
country,  as  well  as  between  two  separate  countries, 
trading  freely  with  each  other.  This  rule  accounts 
for  the  movement  of  factories  away  from  cities, 
when  city  pay-rolls  get  too  high,  pay-rolls  in  distant 
country  districts  often  being  so  low  as  to  offset 
added  freight  costs  and  leave  a  balance  to  the  credit 
of  the  country  mill.  Of  course  it  is  true  as  between 
two  nations ;  and  it  has  often  been  illustrated  under 
free  trade  or  low  tariff -dikes  in  this  country,  dur- 
ing some  momentary  success  of  the  Importing 
Trust.  Our  capital  has  moved  regularly  to  Great 
Britain  and  other  countries  during  low-tariff  eras; 
and  the  only  thing  which  prevented  the  final  level- 
ing of  our  pay-roll  to  the  plane  of  the  British  or 
worse  pay-rolls  was  the  downing  of  the  Democratic 
Donkey  here  and  the  casting  out  of  the  Importing 
Trust  from  our  council  halls.  Such  movements  of 
our  capital  outward  through  tariff-dike  "revision" 
always  introduce  what  we  call  here  "hard  times" 
or  "recessions  in  trade." 

The  second  case  is  this : 

B.  If  such  competing  areas  lie  in  aopreciably  different 
latitudes  not  in  the  tropics,  capital  will  gravitate  towards 
the  lowest  latitudes;  and  pay-rolls  and  their  deuendent 
business  will  be  destroyed  everywhere,  except  in  that  area 
of  lowest  average  latitude  large  enough  to  furnish  pro- 
ducts eoual  to  the  weakest  consuming  power  of  the  com- 
bined areas. 

The  working  of  this  rule  is  shown  in  our  own 
country  by  the  migration  of  Northern  capital  into 
the  South.  Great  blocks  of  capital  have  gone  there 
and  been  put  to  work  in  the  iron  mills  of  Bir- 
mingham and  other  places  and  in  the  cotton  mills 
throughout  the  South.  We  have  already  described 
the  manner  in  which  this  movement  must  continue 


380 

and  what  the  result  will  be  unless  the  tariff-dike 
is  "revised"  in  favor  of  still  lower  latitudes.  The 
Cuban  Treaty  was  a  sad  blow  to  our  Sunny  South ; 
and  another  blow  is  in  sight  in  free  trade  between 
us  and  the  Philippine  Islands.  Our  South  is  a 
glorious  country,  but  it  cannot  compete  with  the 
tropics.  Free  trade  between  our  own  North  and 
South  will  cause  a  change  so  gradual  in  the  locality 
of  capital  that  it  will  probably  not  be  violently 
felt  in  the  North.  The  assimilation  will  be  slow 
and  benevolent;  whereas  "revised"  competition  be- 
tween our  people  as  a  whole  and  the  Philippine 
Islands  or  Cuba  would  be  marked  by  the  rapid 
destruction  of  industrial  values  all  over  the  coun- 
try. 

The  third  case  is  this: 

C.    If  tropical  areas  are  included  in  the  competition, 
capital  will  gravitate  thither  and  monopolize  production, 
to  the  utmost  combined  producing  capacity  of  such  areas. 
Pay-rolls,  business,   and  the  higher  civilization  will  be 
•^     extinguished  everywhere  in  such  competing  areas,  except 
.-?      in  the  tropical  parts,  and  in  whatever  area  of  lowest  aver- 
age aMMMfe  outside  may  be  necessary  to  make  good  any 
shortage  of  the  tropical  parts  in  yielding  products  equal 
to  the  weakest  consuming  power  of  the  combined  areas. 

This  rule  has  long  been  well  illustrated  by  the 
movement  of  our  own  capital  into  Porto  Rico,  Cuba, 
Mexico,  Hawaii,  South  America,  and  the  Philip- 
pine Islands;  the  reason  being  that  the  cost  of 
production  is  so  much  loss  in  these  tropical  areas 
than  in  our  own  country  that  the  tariff  "handicap" 
does  not  sufficiently  offset  their  advantage  of  lat- 
itude; and  therefore  our  capital  "gravitates"  south- 
ward. As  an  instance  of  this  migration,  we  give 
the  following  from  a  New  York  newspaper: 


"CHIHUAHUA,     Mexico,     July    21. — The     concession 
which  was  recently  granted  by  the  State  Government  to 


331 

Col.  W.  C.  Green  of  New  York  for  the  establishment  of 
various  kinds  of  industrial  enterprises  in  this  State  has 
just  been  ratified  by  the  Legislature.  The  concessions  call 
for  the  investment  of  more  than  two  million  dollars  in 
gold." 

And  at  a  later  date,  we  read  in  the  editorial 
columns  of  the  same  newspaper,  under  the  caption, 
"Secretary  Root's  Journey  to  Mexico,"  the  follow- 
ing: 

"Our  relations  with  Mexico  are  close  and  cordial.  The 
Secretarv's  visit  will  strengthen  the  bonds.  Development 
across  the  Bio  Grande  during  recent  years  has  been  al- 
most marvellous.  This  country  is  deeply  interested  in 
that  development" — 

that  is,  the  Importing  Trust  is  "deeply  interested" 
in  the  profits  in  the  development,  your  Honors.  It 
is  a  frightful  menace  to  our  wage-producer.  But 
the  article  continues: 

"This  country  is  deeply  interested  in  that  development 
and  has  contributed  towards  it  and  shared  in  it  in  abund- 
ant measure.  It  is  reported  on  good  authority  that  not 
far  from  $750.000.000  of  American  money  is  employed 
across  the  border" — 

Yes,  your  Honors,  to  take  employment  from  our 
wage-producer  and  to  send  delegations  to  Washing- 
ton to  lobby  for  a  reciprocity  treaty  or  a  German 
Agreement  with  Mexico  for  the  free  admission  of 
their  goods  to  snuff  out  industry  here. 

It  needs  but  half  an  eye,  your  Honors,  to  see 
how  badly  our  domestic  business  is  being  under- 
mined by  the  gravitation  of  our  capital  to  lower 
cost-levels  and  the  withdrawal  from  our  own  funds 
of  what  might  otherwise  have  come  into  our  own 
pay-rolls.  Rut  this  is  not  all,  your  Honors ;  for  in 
addition  to  this  indirect  loss  to  our  business,  this 
emigrating  capital  goes  out  with  no  other  purpose 
than  t<>  nial\e  goods  at  these  foreign  wage-levels  and 


332 

bundle  them  back  over  our  tariff-dike,  and  thus 
cause  a  direct  loss  to  our  pay-roll  and  therefore 
our  business,  equivalent  to  the  domestic  produc- 
tion supplanted  by  the  goods  sent  in  here  by  our 
expatriated  capital  in  Mexico  and  otherwheres.  By 
this  expatriation  of  our  capital,  the  destruction  of 
our  prosperity,  your  Honors,  and  therefore  of  our 
civilization,  refinement  and  general  virility,  is  al- 
most by  geometrical  progression.  Instead  of  wid- 
ening we  should  close  altogether  the  breach  be- 
tween the  quantity  of  work  we  are  doing  now,  and 
what  we  should  and  would  do  if  we  did  all  our 
people  required  for  their  needs.  If  we  closed  our 
ports  and  kept  at  home  the  from  2  to  5%  of  our 
goods  which  we  now  export;  and  ourselves  made 
the  goods  we  now  import,  the  gain  in  our  domes- 
tic business  would  offset  many  times  over  our  loss 
in  foreign  trade. 


XXVIII 

THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA  HAS  NO  BUSINESS 
WITH  TROPICAL  COLONIES,  OR  WITH  TROPICAL  TER- 
RITORIES TO  BE  LATER  MADE  INTO  STATES.  THE  EF- 
FECT OF  SUCH  A  POLICY  WOULD  BE  TO  SACRIFICE 
OUR  WHOLE  WAGE  PRODUCING  POPULATION  TO  THE 
AVARICE  OF  THESE  WILY  PLAINTIFFS. 

And  right  here,  your  Honors1,  it  may  be  well  to 
inquire  what  business  we,  a  benevolent  Republic, 
have  with  subject  possessions.  We  must  not  for- 
get that  we  are  neither  a  Roman  Republic  nor  "a 
Roman  Emjpire — that  is,  not  yet.  We  have  no 
right,  by  taxes  or  tribute  of  any  kind  to  "milk"  our 
subject-provinces.  We  have  no  right  to  exploit 


333 

them  as  the  private  graft  of  our  Exporting  Trust, 
as  England  for  the  benefit  of  her  Exporting  Trust, 
exploited  us  when  we  were  English  colonists.    As 
far  as  we  can  see,  however,  it  is  in  the  interest 
alone  of  our  Exporting  Trust,  as  to  exports  to,  and 
of  our  Importing  Trust,  as  to  imports  from  those 
islands  that  we  should  keep  them  at  all.     On  the 
one  hand  all  these  tropical  islands,  which  are  a 
part  of  us,  and  Cuba,  our  adopted  daughter,  are  a 
menace  to  us;  and  on  the  other  hand  we  are  a 
menace  to  them.    As  long  as  we  hold  them  or  have 
any  right  to  interfere  in  their  affairs,  our  Export- 
ing Trust  will  be  turning  every  stone,  no  matter  at 
what  cost  to  home  production, — as  instance  the 
$66,000,000  a  year  we  are  giving  up  by  the  Cuban 
Reciprocity  Treaty, — to  get  the  inside  track  in  sell- 
ing goods1  to  these  islands,  and  to  postpone  the  day 
when  they  will  found  their  own  manufactories  and 
develop  their  own  natural  treasures;  and  in  this 
way  we  are  assisting  to  exploit  them  against  their 
own  best  interests  which  lie  in  their  shutting  out 
our  goods  and  in  their  consequent  symmetrical  de- 
velopment of  industries  and  the  creation  of  an  in- 
dustrial population  in  those  islands  which,  for  all 
their  products,  will  make  for  them  a  sure  and  per- 
petual market.     On  the  other  hand,  unless  we  cut 
adrift  from  our  tropical  possessions  and  aggres- 
sions, our  Importing  Trust  will  rack  its  head  sick 
contriving  hard  luck  stories  as  to  these  "poor  little 
struggling  peoples,"  the  upshot  of  which  will  al- 
ways be   the   same  appeal  to   Americans   to  take 
down  the  tariff  bars  and  give  the  unhappy  little 
colored  people  a  "much  needed  market;"  and  the 
American  people,  forgetting  that  they  have  no  right 
whatever,  under  the  Constitution  or  under  the  law 
of  God,  to  bo  generous  before  they  are  just  and 


334 

to  give  these  little  colored  people  alms  by  picking 
the  pockets  of  countless  American  wage-producers, 
will  enter  into  some  fool  treaty,  like  the  one  with 
Germany,  or  the  one  with  Cuba,  which,  by  giving 
this  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  a  chance 
to  sell  here  in  our  own  domestic  market  cost-10 
goods  from  the  tropics,  in  competition  with  our 
own  cost-100  goods,  will  kill  off  hope,  health,  hap- 
piness, and  often  life  among  our  fellow  citizens 
here.  And  while  these  wily  plaintiffs  are  getting 
more  wealthy  from  forcing  those  islands  into  an 
abnormal  development  and  its  later  misery  for  the 
islanders,  they  are  filling  our  newspapers  with  their 
lamentations  at  the  "selfishness"  of  our  beet-sugar 
makers,  who  object  to  being  sacrificed  to  the  trop- 
ical philanthropies  of  the  wily  plaintiffs.  This  is 
all  according  to  the  arrangement  of  their  brain- 
cells,  your  Honors,  which  merely  comes  from  their 
peculiar  environment,  a  part  of  which  is  the  pres- 
ence here  of  a  crowd  of  tender-hearted  people  like 
us  who  are  always  willing  that  health-giving  boils 
should  grow  on  our  neighbors'  necks  and  that  our 
neighbors'  pockets  should  furnish  the  alms  for  the 
giving  of  which  we  expect  to  get  credit.  We  are 
a  lot  of  wretched  hypocrites,  your  Honors;  we  be- 
lieve in  fasting  and  prayer  for  our  spiritual  up- 
building— if  we  but  be  allowed  to  do  the  praying, 
by  the  absent-treatment  route;  while  the  other  fel- 
low does  the  fasting. 

Very  seriously,  your  Honors,  we  have  no  right 
to  exploit  our  colonies.  The  only  decent  course  to- 
wards them  is  to  cut  them  out  of  exporting  goods 
to  us  and  ourselves  out  of  exporting  goods  to  them  ; 
by  raisins  our  tariff-dike  very  high  against  all  the 
world,  them  included;  and  raising  their  tariff-dike 
nsrainst  all  the  world,  ourselves  included.  If  we 


336 

do  less  than  this,  we  shall  make  them  the  victim  of 
our  two  parasites,  the  wily  plaintiffs,  the  Import- 
ing Trust  and  the  Exporting  Trust.  Our  tropical 
islands  will  be  the  object  of  continual  exploitation 
by  these  destructive  agencies;  and  we  ourselves 
shall  suffer  from  the  distortion  of  our  industries 
and  the  congestion  of  our  wage-producers  upon  man- 
ufacturing alone.  Because  of  the  destruction  of  our 
agricultural  industries'  from  competition  with  these 
tropical  colonies  and  their  endless  summer;  and, 
because  of  the  superior  organization  of  our  manu- 
facturing industries,  they  will  suffer,  though  only 
for  a  time,  by  a  like  congestion  of  their  wage-pro- 
ducers upon  agricultural  industries  alone.  And 
thus  both  our  wage-producers  and  theirs,  practic- 
ally the  entire  population  in  both  competing  areas, 
would  be  more  or  less  abjectly  enslaved  to  their 
bodily  necessities.  But  for  us  the  end  of  it  all 
would  be,  either  a  dike  excluding  their  goods  alto- 
gether, or  the  total  destruction  of  our  entire  indus- 
trial system,  for  a  cost-100  country  would  finally  be 
underbidden  all  along  the  line  by  cost-10  colonies, 
gifted  as  our  colonies  are  with  all  the  natural  ma- 
terials for  manufacturing  of  every  kind. 

Your  Honors,  we  rejoice  in  our  good  Mother  Eng- 
land. We  have  had  a  couple  of  set-toos  with  her 
since  we  cut  her  apron-strings;  but  that  was  only 
natural.  Who  would  blame  her  for  trying  to  bring 
back  to  her  heart  such  a  likely  kid  as  we  are?  But 
Mother  England  is  afflicted  with  brain-cells  also. 
She  does  not  do  as  she  will  but  only  as  she  can- 
considering  her  peculiar  brain-cells.  And  so  she 
has  given  us  good  examples  of  the  sort  of  mis- 
takes that  we,  her  children,  forty-six  sovereign 
states,  ought  not  to  make  in  this  matter  of  subject 
colonies.  She  has  grown  mellow  and  sweet  and 


quite  adorable  in  her  advanced  age;  and,  at  this 
day,  when  we  see  with  what  a  mild  motherliness 
she  manages  her  colonies  in  Canada  and  Australia, 
we  take  off  our  hat  in  sincere  veneration.  But  it 
was  not  always  thus;  nor  has  she  corrected  her 
mistakes  in  Ireland  and  India,  the  dire  results  of 
which  are  still  mighty  for  the  unhappiness  of  the 
people  of  those  countries.  Both  Ireland  and  India 
are  chronic  famine  countries  since  Mother  Eng- 
land compelled  them  to  have  free  trade  with  her; 
snatched  from  them  the  opportunities  to  labor  aris- 
ing from  their  own  peoples'  wants;  and  made  of 
them  the  mere  spoil  of  her  Importing  and  Export- 
ing Trusts.  The  yeast  is  working  in  India.  The 
causes  of  India's  famines  and  her  general  wretch- 
edness are  rising  to  the  surface.  Her  wise  men  see 
that  it  is  because  their  country  is  systematically 
plundered  by  her  Importing  and  Exporting  Trusts, 
that  her  people  are  congested  upon  a  narrow  field 
of  employment;  that  her  industries  are  therefore 
not  diversified,  and  that  the  crops  failing  upon 
which  they  must  exclusively  rely,  there  is  nothing 
left  for  her  people  but  starvation.  These  facts  are 
welling  up  from  the  deeply  stirred  depths  of  East 
Indian  life,  and  the  remedy  must  be  at  last  the 
extermination  of  the  counterparts1  of  these  wily 
plaintiffs  in  India.  Here  is  what  Mr.  Francis  H. 
Skrine  says  in  our  North  American  Review  for 
August,  1907 : 

"The  jute  traffic  has  poured  a  flood  of  wealth  into 
Bengal,  whose  down-trodden  masses  chafe  under  Brahmin 
despotism  and  crave  for  a  larger  measure  of  social  recog- 
nition. But  the  distribution  of  wealth  is  as  defective  as  it 
is  in  Europe.  An  increasing  percentage  of  the  Indian 
population  is  always  on  the  verge  of  famine.  Railways 
have  equalized  the  price  of  food,  and  maintained  it  at  a 
far  higher  level  than  in  the  days  of  native  rule.  Foreign 
commerce  is  indeed  advancing  by  leaps  and  bounds;  but 
from  an  Indian  point  of  view,  it  does  not  conduce  to  the 


337 

general  well-being.  The  great  bulk  of  its  profits  is  spent 
in  Europe,  America,  and  China.  Exports  consist  mainly 
of  raw  materials;  imports  of  manufactured  goods  which 
might  readily  be  produced  by  organized  labor  within  the 
Empire.  INDIGENOUS  INDUSTRIES  HAVE  BEEN 
KILLED  BY  FBJEE  TRADE,  AND  THOSE  WHO  HAVE 
PURSUED  THEM  HAVE  BEEN  RELEGATED  TO  AN 
OVERBURDENED  SOIL.  NINETY  PER  CENT.  OF 
THE  POPULATION  ARE  AGRICULTURISTS,  MOST 
OF  WHOM  ARE  PACKED  INTO  THE  ALLUVIAL 
AREAS.  Early  marriages  and  large  families  are  incai- 
cated  by  religion.  Thus  the  preventive  checks  enunciated 
by  Malthus  are  at  wor&  on  a  gigantic  scale.  Warfare  and 
famine  are  prevented  by  the  British  Government,  but  it  is 
powerless  against  cholera  and  plague.  The  pressure  of 
population  on  the  soil  is  feit  by  all  classes  with  increas- 
ing stringency;  and  they  blame  alien  riuers  lor  the  con- 
sequences of  their  disobedience  to  nature's  laws." 

Your  Honors,  India's  "indigenous  industries  have 
been  killed  by  free  trade,"  in  very  truth;  and  all 
for  the  benefit  of  the  Importing  and  Exporting 
Trusts  of  that  unhappy  country.  Wherever  you 
find  a  despotism  approachable  by  any  sort  of  a 
bribe,  or  open  to  any  kind  of  corruption,  there  you 
find  such  as  these  wily  plaintiffs  in  supreme  power. 
For  they  represent  the  nomadic  and  marauding 
merchant  princes  of  the  world,  with  all  kinds  of 
money  to  burn  for  the  privilege  of  plundering  the 
common  peeople  both  ways,  viz.,  on  the  one  hand 
through  the  Exporting  Trust,  by  the  congestion  of 
indigenous  industry  upon  a  few  special  industries, 
the  exploiting  of  which  offers  the  richest  and  speed- 
iest returns  to  the  Exporting  Trust,  and  the  conse- 
quent enslaving  of  the  people  by  low  wages;  and 
on  the  other  hand,  through  the  Importing  Trust,  by 
depriving  native  industry  of  employment  because 
of  labor-supplanting  imports,  and  thus  aiding  the 
congestion  of  labor  upon  the  same  employments 
exploited  by  the  Exporting  Trust.  Is  this  the  point 
towards  which  we  of  the  United  States  are  drift- 
ing under  Cuban  Reciprocity  Treaties  and  German 
Agreements,  and  for  the  same  reason,  viz.,  the  in- 


338 

fluence  of  these  powerful  and  wily  plaintiffs  at 
court?  And  will  the  injury  already  inflicted  by 
the  methods  named  be  later  supplemented  by  free 
trade  with  the  Philippines  and,  through  this  "hole 
in  the  wall,"  with  all  the  rest  of  the  world? 

And  what  is  true  of  the  Indian  colony  is  true 
of  the  Irish  Colony,  just  across  the  channel  from 
the  place  where  the  people  "roll  in  gold ;"  and  these 
latter  "roll  in  gold,"  your  Honors,  because  they 
represent  England's  Exporting  Trust  and  her  Im- 
porting Trust  who,  with  free  trade,  exploit  poor 
Ireland  unto  her  death.  In  short,  it  is  through  the 
avenue  of  free  trade  alone  by  which  these  incarna- 
tions of  rapine  in  Great  Britain  uniformly  turn 
English  colonies  to  account  as  they  have  done  ever 
since  we,  in  this  country,  were  colonists;  and  this 
too  is  the  only  way,  except  through  excessive  taxa- 
tion for  the  maintenance  of  governments  in  our  col- 
onies, represented  by  barnacles,  bloodsuckers  and 
spoils-sharing  favorites  of  our  Administration  at 
Washington,  that  Porto  Kico,  Hawaii,  or  the  Phil- 
ippines can  ever  be  of  any  profit  to  us;  since  our 
generous  people  would  never  tolerate  the  collection 
of  open  tribute  to  our  Government,  after  the  man- 
ner of  the  Empires  of  old  towards  their  subject 
provinces ;  and  after  the  manner  of  Mother  England 
even  at  this  day  in  Egypt.  For  we  read  in  a  late 
New  York  newspaper: 


"There  are  several  points  of  resemblance  and  of  differ- 
ence in  the  situations  presented  respectively  in  Egypt  and 
in  Corea.  The  suzerainty  of  the  Ottoman  Empire  over 
the  Nile  land  is  not  disputed  by  any  European  Power  and 
is  formally  recognized  by  Great  Britain  in  the  payment 
of  an  annual  tribute." 

What  is  this  annual  tribute,  your  Honors?    Sim- 
ply blackmail.     It  was  formerly  paid  by  Egypt  to 


339 

Turkey  to  buy  Turkey's  abstinence  from  the  violent 
taking  of  Egyptian  property;  and  by  the  force  of 
circumstances  England  is  compelled  to  be  a  party 
to  this  brigandage  by  paying  the  "tribute"  from 
Egyptian  taxes,  or  getting  a  recoupment  through 
the  Egyptian  Exporting  Trust,  which  sent  us 
120,000,000  of  raw  cotton  last  year,  and  probably 
made  us  pay  that  tribute  to  Turkey;  while  the  Im- 
porting Trust,  one  of  the  wily  plaintiffs  herein, 
still  succeeds  through  its  Washington  lobby  in  pre- 
venting the  tariff-dike  from  sheltering  our  South- 
ern cotton-growers.  So  in  this  round-about  way  we 
enlightened  Americans  pay  tribute  to  Turkey ;  that 
is,  blood-money,  a  payment  for  not  murdering 
in  Egypt. 

As  we  have  said,  poor  Ireland  also  is  unhappily 
an  appendage  of  a  Government  where  free  trade 
has  free  course  and  her  industries  like  those  of  In- 
dia "have  been  killed  by  free  trade,  and  those  who 
have  pursued  them  have  been  relegated  to  an  over- 
burdened soil."  Here  is  an  article  from  the  New 
York  Times  of  September  20,  1907,  under  the  title 
"Is  Ireland  Asleep?"  which  illustrates  Irish  con- 
ditions: 


"Mr.  Michael  McKenna,  an  Alderman  of  Chicago,  has 
returned  from  a  tour  of  Ireland  strong  in  the  conviction 
that  something  ought  to  be  done  for  the  mother  country. 
There  is  plenty  of  Irisn  American  capital  in  this  country, 
Mr.  McKenna  thinks,  'begging  for  channels  of  invest- 
ment,' and  he  suggests  the  manufacture  of  Irish  lace,  the 
development  of  Irish  market  gardens  and  fancy  dairies  as 
excellent  channels  for  it  to  seek.  The  Alderman  saw 
acres  and  acres  of  Irish  land  lying  waste  for  the  lack  of 
that  kind  of  energy  and  push  Irishmen  lend  to  the  affairs 
of  Chicago.  He  also  noted  that  the  persistent  report  of 
the  pig  dwelling  under  the  same  roof  as  the  family  is  ut- 
terly false.  He  traveled  all  over  Ireland  and  never  once 
saw  the  pig  in  the  parlor.  So  the  too  familiar  Irish  pig  is 
proved  a  myth  like  William  Tell  and  the  Chinese  play 
that  requires  a  year  or  so  in  the  acting.  Ireland,  the  Al- 
derman declares,  is  asleep.  While  the  British  Parliament 


340 

is  in  session  the  world  frequently  notes  that  the  sleep  of 
Ireland  is  restless.  But  the  Alderman  is  right.  What 
Ireland  needs  more  than  all  else  is  some  of  the  energy 
her  sons  exert  in  other  lands.  Undoubtedly  some  of  the 
capital  Irishmen  so  easily  accumulate  elsewhere  could  be 
put  to  good  and  profitable  use  in  the  mother  country.'' 

The  sleep  of  Ireland,  your  Honors1,  is  the  sleep 
that  follows  total  exhaustion,  after  a  long  wrestle 
with  the  angel  of  death  from  whom  escape  has  final- 
ly been  made  "so  as  by  fire."  During  the  dreadful 
famines  that  visited  her  in  the  first  century  after 
she  was  forced  to  abandon  her  leading  industries 
in  favor  of  the  English  Exporting  Trust,  free  trade 
with  England  starved  Irishmen  by  thousands  and 
thousands.  Her  population  fled  from  her  shores 
as  from  a  burning  ship  and  the  number  of  Irish- 
men living  on  the  Emerald  Isle  was  reduced  from 
8,000,000  to  5,000,000;  and  the  hope  of  life  went 
out  from  hundreds  of  thousands  of  those  kept  at 
home  by  lack  of  the  price  of  a  steerage  berth.  Thus 
Ireland,  the  home  of  one  of  the  most  gifted  and 
generous  of  peoples,  and  of  the  most  unflagging  in- 
dustry; the  home  of  the  keenest  mother  wit  of 
which  the  world  has1  knowledge,  of  fervent  patriot- 
ism, deep  learning,  and  loyal  affection  for  hill  and 
dale,  lake  and  heath,  was  swept  by  the  angel  of 
death,  scarred  and  broken  by  famine  and  disease, 
and  abandoned  by  millions  of  her  sad-hearted  sons 
who  were  compelled  to  choose  between  home-love 
and  starvation;  all  because  of  congesting  upon  her 
soil  the  greater  part  of  her  population,  through  the 
destruction  of  her  magnificent  industries  at  the 
hands  of  the  British  Parliament,  which  was  almost 
synonymous  with  the  British  Exporting  Trust. 
Conditions  remain  the  same  now  as  decades1  ago. 
"The  Alderman  saw  acres  and  acres  of  Irish  land 
lying  waste  for  the  lack  of  that  kind  of  energy  and 
push  Irishmen  lend  to  affairs,"  when  free  trade 


does  not  enslave  them  and  put  (he  fruits  of  their 
toil  in  the  till  of  some  Importing  or  Exporting 
Trust.  "Undoubtedly  some  of  the  capital  Irishmen 
so  easily  accumulate"  where  they  are  given  a  fair 
share  of  the  results  of  their  industry  "could  be  put 
to  good  and  profitable  use  in  the  mother  country;" 
but  no  sensible  Irishman  from  this  country  will 
put  a  penny  in  an  Irish  industry  as  long  as  the 
British  Exporting  Trust,  through  free  trade  with 
Ireland,  stands  with  open  maw  to  swallow  his  prof 
its  and  his  business.  Ireland,  like  India,  is  a  poor 
helpless  and  cruelly  exploited  colony  of  Great  Bri- 
tain. Do  we  want  such  colonies,  your  Honors?  No 
your  Honors,  wherever  they  may  be,  we  do  not 
want  such  colonies.  So  long  as  we  hold  them,  they 
will  furnish  only  just  so  many  more  sleight-of-hand 
tricks  whereby  these  plaintiffs,  by  sacrificing  $10 
of  solid  domestic  business  for  each  $1  of  exports 
to  or  imports  from  their  trading  regions,  can  turn 
our  national  wealth  into  their  own  pockets.  Wo 
do  not  want  to  starve  our  colonies  or  have  them 
starve  us ;  but  any  trade  between  us  in  either  direc- 
tion is  to  the  injury  of  wage-producers  there  or 
here.  Considering  the  height  we  occupy  in  the  mat- 
ter of  wages,  we  particularly  shall  be  injured  at 
every  step.  We  cannot  afford  to  have  our  indus- 
tries made  fewer  under  any  circumstances.  To 
diversify  industries  into  the  greatest  possible  va- 
riety, is  to  elevate  your  wage-producer  and  give 
him  the  best  chance  for  advancement  in  the  world. 
The  greatest  diversity  in  production  gives  the  great- 
est diversity  in  exchanges,  which  helps  each  wage- 
producer  to  the  greatest  variety  of  other  products 

in  exchange  for  his  own.     His  product,  wages,  is 
divided  into  as  many  different  parts  as  there  are 

parts  to  his  needs;  and  he  offers  these  parts  to 


342 

people  who  need  what  he  offers  and  offer  what  he 
needs.  That  this  is  done  through  money  as  a  go- 
between  does  not  alter  the  facts.  His  working  for 
wages  and  offering  money  for  each  thing  he  wants 
is  a  good  deal  more  convenient  but  it  amounts  to 
the  same  thing  as  if,  being  a  shoemaker,  he  went 
to  the  hatter  and  made  him  a  pair  of  shoes  in  ex- 
change for  a  hat;  then  to  the  clothier  to  do  the 
same  thing  for  clothes;  then  to  the  grocer,  to  do  the 
same  thing  for  groceries,  and  so  on.  The  purpose 
of  our  work  is  to  exchange  it  for  the  work  of  others 
in  this  way.  Now,  unless  we  who,  considering  our 
climate  and  soil,  are  people  to  whom  life  is  about 
equally  expensive,  exchange  between  ourselves  ex- 
clusively, there  will  be  no  necessary  correspondence 
between  the  energy  and  fibre  which  we  put  into  the 
work  we  do  and  the  energy  and  fibre  represented 
in  the  wages  which  we  receive  back  in  exchange. 
That  is,  if  we  had  worked  a  week  and  had  laid  out 
energy  which  could  only  be  restored  to  us  by  re- 
ceiving a  certain  price  for  our  work,  covering,  say, 
a  week's  food,  clothing,  shelter,  and  recreation,  but 
by  a  leak  in  the  dike  were  compelled  to  take  a  price 
for  our  work  which  would  only  pay  for  food,  cloth- 
ing, shelter,  and  recreation  for  three  and  a  half 
days,  we  would  have  to  go  without  food,  clothing, 
and  shelter  for  three  and  a  half  days  in  every  week. 
Now  this  shows  what  happens  when  people  living 
in  one  set  of  conditions  are  compelled  by  free  trade 
or  a  "revised"  tariff-dike  to  compete  with  people 
living  under  a  different  set  of  conditions.  A  given 
amount  of  labor  in  one  country  will  buy  either 
more  or  less  than  in  another.  The  cause  of  this 
may  be  that  one  country  lies  in  a  region  of  longer 
summers  and  richer  soils  than  the  other,  where  in 
order  to  live  comfortably  people  need  to  get  less 


343 

wages  out  of  their  employment.  Or  perhaps  the 
workers  in  one  country  live  in  poorer  circumstan- 
ces than  those  of  another  country,  so  that,  while 
making  just  as  much  product  in  a  day,  in  order  to 
get  back  the  human  fibre  they  have  put  in  it,  they 
need  to  be  paid  less  for  their  product.  And  so,  if, 
instead  of  being  compelled  by  a  tariff-dike,  to  buy 
his  week's  supplies  of  the  people  who  might  have 
just  paid  him  for  his  week's  work,  a  wage-producer 
should  buy  that  week's  supplies  of  the  Importing 
Trust,  at  the  price  which  would  only  return  to  the 
foreigner  abroad  the  cost  of  his  cheaper  week's  liv- 
ing, he  might  find  that  he  had  in  his  own  pocket 
the  difference  between  the  cost  of  a  week's  living 
at  home  and  a  week's  living  in  a  cheaper  country; 
but,  in  the  first  place,  he  would  have  stopped  the 
ready  sale,  at  the  home  price,  of  a  week's  work 
done  by  some  one  of  his  countrymen  to  whom  he 
had  been  the  anticipated  medium  of  exchanging  one 
week's  cost  of  domestic  living  for  another.  And.  in 
the  second  place,  he  would  have  compelled  that 
same  fellow  worker  either  to  <ro  without  food,  cloth- 
ing, shelter,  and  recreation  altogether,  or  to  tnke 
for  his  week's  work  a  price  which  would  pav  for 
loss  than  a  week's  supply  of  these  necessary  things. 
That  is,  he  would  find,  in  the  end.  that  the  cram  in 
his  pocket,  that  is,  the  balance  left  there  after  buy- 
ing his  week's  supplv  of  the  Import  ins:  Trust,  would 
exactlv  correspond  to  the  shortage  in  the  pocket  of 
his  fellow  worker,  diminished  bv  the  commission 
appropriated  bv  the  Importing  Trust  upon  the 
"•^ods  which  had  passed  throusrh  its  warehouse  here. 
That  is,  again,  this  wa ire-producer  who  had  boucrht 
his  week's  supplies  of  the  Importing  Trust,  would 
have  sacrificed  a  fellow  workman,  in  order  to  di- 
vide with  the  Importing  Trust  the  difference  be- 


JH4 

tween  his  fellow  workman's  weekly  pay  and  the 
weekly  pay  of  some  workman  in  a  cheaper  country. 
But  the  American  wage-producer  who  votes  for  an 
Importing-Trust  Administration  here,  such  as  the 
Roosevelt-Sternburg  combination,  soon  gets  the 
profit  of  such  transactions  taken  away  from  him  by 
similar  Importing-Trust  bargains  made  by  his  fel- 
low wage-producers;  and  the  result  is  a  general 
lowering  of  the  plane  of  American  living  to  that  of 
the  countries  from  which  the  Importing  Trust  gets 
its  goods. 

We  cannot  repeat  too  often  that  the  sole  business 
of  these  wily  plaintiffs  is  to  search  everywhere  to 
find  places  where  either  the  climate  and  soil  or  the 
low  social  condition  enables  people  to  sell  their 
day's  labor  for  less  than  the  pay  received  by  some 
worker  in  another  country ;  and  then  to  buy  the 
cheap  day's  labor  and  go  to  that  other  country  and 
undersell  with  it  the  worker  who  must  get  more  for 
his  labor  in  order  to  live ;  and  so  compel  the  latter 
to  go  without  food  at  all  or  accept  a  price  for  his 
labor  which  will  not  return  to  him  his  outlay  in 
blood  and  muscle ;  in  other  words,  accept  starvation 
wages.  Your  Honors,  it  is  because  of  this  piratical 
and  vicious  character  of  the  business  of  these  wily 
plaintiffs  that  we  have  appealed  their  case  to  this 
High  Court.  The  heinous  wrong  which  the  Import- 
ing Trust  does  to  the  workers  of  this  country  is 
done  by  the  Exporting  Trust  to  the  workers  of 
other  countries.  They  are  both  the  worst  possible 
enemies  of  civilization  and  morality  that  exist  upon 
this  round  globe.  Wherever  they  go  and  whatever 
they  do  in  the  line  of  their  business  is  to  the  de- 
gradation and  destruction  of  wage-producers.  They 
are  low  and  sordid  in  spirit;  for  they  care  not 
whence  they  draw  their  profits  or  on  what  innocent 


345 

babes  they  feed.  For  their  fiendish  operations  are 
carried  on  against  the  very  babe  in  arms;  they  are 
the  destroyers  of  happy  family  life.  Base,  ignoble, 
sordid  birds  of  prey,  their  members  as  remorse- 
lessly consume  the  very  flesh  of  their  fellow  men 
as  the  eagles  the  lambs  of  the  hillside  flock.  They 
make  no  profit  in  anything  that  does  not  reek  of 
death.  Ay,  your  Honors,  every  penny  they  put  in 
their  pants  is  the  coined  blood  of  some  honest  toiler 
somewhere  on  this  globe! 

Oh,  your  Honors,  for  but  a  glimpse  at  the  brain- 
cells  of  these  wily  plaintiffs!     We  know  that  we 
should  find  them  the  same  size,  mass,  shape,  and 
relative  position  as  those  which  figure  in  the  brains 
of  highway  robbers,   burglars,     pickpockets,   and 
sneak  thieves.    For  they  all  pursue  their  respective 
callings,  heedless  and  regardless  of  the  dreadful 
want  they  bring  on  innocent  wage-producers.    They 
are  all  of  a  kidney,  your  Honors,  however  much 
they  may  differ  in  the  churches  they  attend  and  the 
clothes  they  wear.     They  are  the  national  leeches 
and  bloodsucking  parasites  against  which  we  have 
always  contended.     They  are  gamblers  and  adven- 
turers, knights  of  fortune.    It  is  they  who  make  all 
the  uncertainties  of  life;  they  make  it  a  naked 
gamble  from  day  to  day;  for,  because  one  of  these 
wily  plaintiffs  may  have  discovered  some  wage-pro- 
ducer more  wretched  than  he  and  therefore  ready 
to  work  for  less  bread  by  the  day,  nobody  can  tell 
at  what  hour  one  of  them  may  appear  to  snatch 
from  the  honest  worker  his  job  and  make  him  sit 
in  hunger  and  tears  with  his  starving  children  dis- 
tracting his  heart  with  cries  for  bread.     We  can- 
not look  kindly  upon  these  wily  plaintiffs,  your 
Honors,  even  though  they  did  not  arrange  their 
brnin-cells,     or   choose   the   unhappy   environment 


346 

which  has  forced  them  to  such  close  kinship  with 
the  hyenas,  the  foxes,  the  wolves,  and  all  the  rude 
and  blood-thirsty  children  of  savagedom. 


XXIX 

THE  LAW  OF  ECONOMIC  GRAVITATION  WHICH  WE  HAVE 
HERETOFORE  OUTLINED  IS  THE  BUSINESS  LAW  AC- 
CORDING TO  WHICH  ALL  CAPITAL  IS  NOW  MOVING, 
AND  A  RECOGNITION  OF  THE  PRINCIPLES  IT  IN- 
VOLVES MUST  LIE  AT  THE  FOUNDATION  OF  HAPPI- 
NESS OF  EVERY  NATION. 

Your  Honors,  we  have  already  outlined  to  you 
what  we  think  are  the  principles  according  to  which 
all  capital  now  moves,  locates  and  participates  in 
production,  to  the  employment  of  the  property-pro- 
ducer, the  wage-producer,  and  the  adjunct-produc- 
er, who  comprise  all  the  active  population  of  every 
civilized  country.  So  far  as  the  observed  facts 
which  it  states  are  concerned  there  is  nothing  new 
in  this  law  of  economic  gravitation.  We  take  no 
credit  except  for  having  put  it  in  this  orderly  form 
and  shown  the  relation  which  so  plainly  exists  be- 
tween capital,  climate,  and  pay-roll.  Since  we  built 
it  up  with  such  interpolated  explanatory  comment 
as  to  separate  the  parts  rather  inconveniently,  for 
convenience  of  reference  we  will  state  the  law  here 
as  a  whole  and  in  close  sequence.  It  is  as  follows : 

BENEDICT'S  LAW  OF  ECONOMIC  GRAVITATION 

1.  Capital  desiring  a  given  market  for  its  output  must 
finally  locate  in  the  area  of  lowest  cost  of  production  for 
that  market. 

2.  Cost  of  subsistence  is  cost  of  production  and  is  rep- 
resented by  pay-rolls,  which  are  the  measure  of  what  is 
called  "business." 


347 

3.  Outside  of  the  tropics,  naked  cost  of  subsistence 
varies  directly  with  latitude;  while  within  the  tropics  it 
is  uniform  and  lowest. 

4.  If,  in  competing  areas  of  production,  differences  be- 
tween pay-rolls  or  latitudes  be  not  offset  by  handicaps, 
the  following  will  be  true: 

A.  If  such  areas  are  in  the  same  average  latitude, 
capital  will  gravitate  towards  the  lowest  pay-rolls.   The 
highest  pay-rolls  will  contract,  while  the  lower  will  ex- 
pand, until  pay-rolls  and  their  incident  business  have 
become  equalized  throughout  the  competing  areas. 

B.  If  such  competing  areas  lie  in  appreciably  differ- 
ent latitudes  not  in  the  tropics,  capital  will  gravitate 
towards  the  lowest  latitudes;   and  pay-rolls  and  their 
dependent  business  will  be  destroyed  everywhere,  ex- 
cept  in    that   area    of   lowest    average   latitude   large 
enough  to  furnish  products  equal  to  the  weakest  con- 
suming power  of  the  combined  areas. 

C.  If  tropical  areas  are  included  in  the  competition, 
capital  will  gravitate  thither  and  monopolize  produc- 
tion to  the  utmost  combined  producing  capacity  of  such 
areas.     Pay-rolls,  business,  and  the  higher  civilization 
will  be  extingished  everywhere  in  such  competing  areas, 
except  in  the  tropical  parts,  and  in  whatever  area  of 
lowest  average  latitude  outside  may  be  necessary  to 
make  good  any  shortage  of  the  tropical  parts  in  yielding 
products  equal  to  the  weakest  consuming  power  of  the 
combined  areas. 

Your  Honors,  we  have  already  called  attention  to 
the  fact  that  even  for  a  given  amount  of  work,  pay- 
rolls may  vary  from  country  to  country.  Of  course, 
whether  a  lower  pay-roll  will  sustain  the  wage-pro- 
ducer without  loss  of  fibre,  depends  upon  how  much 
of  the  necessaries  of  life  his  wages  in  his  country 
will  buy.  We  might  call  that  pay-roll  a  full  pay- 
roll which  returned  to  the  wage-producer  his  fibre 
and  a  savings  fund.  We  also  might  call  a  pay-roll 
naked  when  it  returns  the  wage-producer's  fibre  but 
nothing  more.  And  we  might  call  it  degenerate, 
when  the  pay-roll  returns  less  than  the  wage-pro- 
ducer's fibre.  Our  own  pay-roll  is  probably  the 
only  full  pay-roll  in  the  best  sense,  in  the  world. 
Some  European  pay-rolls  are  barely  naked;  while 


348 

others  are  flatly  degenerate.    England's  pay-roll,  in 
the  average  is  flatly  degenerate,  because  she  now 
does  and  long  has  allowed  her  Importing  and  Ex- 
porting Trusts  to  coin  the  bodies  of  her  wage-pro- 
ducers into  profits  for  these  evil  geniuses  of  Eng- 
land.    It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  England's 
entire  industrial  population  has  been  approaching 
identity  with  her  pauper  class  for  over  a  generation. 
To  save  themselves  from  such  a  fate,  English  wage- 
producers  are  emigrating  to  other  lands  by  the 
hundred  thousand;  and  those  who  remain  at  home, 
congested  on  fewer  and  fewer  industries,  are  en- 
gaged in  a  constant  trade-union  war  with  their  em- 
ployers against  reductions  in  wages.     At  the  mo- 
ment there  is  a  better  tone  in  English  industry  ow- 
ing entirely  to  the  great  leak  in  our  Dingley  Dike 
which  allows  hundreds  of  millions  of  English  com- 
peting goods  to  invade  our  market  here  every  year. 
Your  Honors,  we  believe  the  law  just  detailed  in 
your  hearing  is  that  according  to    which    capital 
must  always  move.    If  it  does  not  move,  it  must  be 
because   of   some   "handicap"   offsetting  either  a 
lower  pay-roll  or  a  lower  latitude.     We  are  aware 
that  these  wily  plaintiffs,  and  especially  the  Im- 
porting Trust,  will  utter  their  loudest  "pooh-pooh" 
at  the  notion  that  the  tropics  can  ever  have  any 
drawing  power  for  capital.     But,  your  Honors,  we 
believe  that,  as  strong  as  the  law  of  physical  gravi- 
tation upon  matter,  will  henceforth  be  the  pull  of 
the  tropics  upon  capital.    Glacier-like  in  its  move- 
ment, it  will  be  as  irresistible,  except  for  the  con- 
struction of  "handicaps"  in  the  form  of  strong  tar- 
iff-dikes to  stop  utterly  the  influx  of  tropical  goods ; 
and  the  temperate-zone  nation  which  lowers  or  "re- 
vises" downward  its  present  dike,  or  scorns  to  build 
higher  that  already  built,  will  begin  to  be  forced 


349 

down  by  the  glacier  from  the  very  hour  of  its  scorn. 
If,  in  our  case,  by  "revision"  or  by  neglect  to  build 
our  dike  higher,  we  should  expose  ourselves,  a  cost- 
100  country,  to  the  competition  of  the  cost-10  trop- 
ics, the  movement  of  our  capital  outward  would  be 
glacial  in  its  resistless  power  but  avalanchial  in 
its  speed.  Standing  high,  we  would  fall  far  and 
swiftly.  In  our  hemisphere  we  point  to  Mexico  and 
Brazil,  both  largely  tropical,  as  certain,  unless  wo 
"handicap"  them  with  prohibitory  dikes,  to  exterm- 
inate our  industries  in  the  next  half  century.  And 
what  shall  we  say  of  Cuba,  at  our  door,  entirely 
tropical,  the  island  which  our  wily  plaintiffs  long 
to  annex  to  us  intact,  with  a  capacity  for  all  forms 
of  production  and  at  such  costs  as  to  paralyze  the 
industries  of  our  entire  Atlantic  States!  Why, 
your  Honors,  look  at  that  part  of  the  earth  which 
is  all  in  lower  latitudes  than  our  United  States! 
Two-thirds  of  South  America;  all  of  Central  Amer- 
iVa  and  the  West  Indies;  about  all  of  Mexico;  about 
all  of  Africa;  three-quarters  of  Australia;  all  of  the 
Malaysian  Archipelago;  and  a  large  slice  of  Con- 
tinental Asia!  Your  Honors,  as  S1/^  is  to  20  so  is 
the  area  of  our  United  States  to  that  of  the  tropical 
and  sub-tropical  world  combined.  We  have  asked 
you  the  question  before,  but  we  ask  it  now  again : 
Under  "revision''  or  even  under  a  failure  to  build 
our  dike  far  higher,  what  show  would  our  one- 
seventeenth  of  the  earth's  area,  population,  capi- 
tal, and  raw  materials  have  against  the  remaining 
sixteen-seventeenth*  and  their  bare  bargain-coun- 
ter, auction-sale  surpluses?  What  show  would  a 
.°>1o  area  in  the  "bleak  north"  have  against  a  20 
area,  all  in  the  world's  Sunny  South  !  Can  we  swim 
up  Niagara  Falls,  your  Honors?  Can  we  walk  up 
Washington  Monument  at  right-angles,  like  a  fly, 


350 

but  without  suckers  on  our  bare  feet?  For  the  hap- 
piness of  these  wily  plaintiffs,  are  we  to  try  and 
stein  the  tropical  tide?  Do  "the  laws  of  commerce" 
make  it  necessary  for  us  to  prostrate  ourselves  be- 
fore the  Juggernaut  of  cheap  production?  Oh,  we 
know  that  the  wily  plaintiffs  say,  and  especially 
our  pet  enemy,  the  Importing  Trust,  that  the  little 
yellow  men,  the  brown  men,  the  black  men,  and  all 
the  rest,  are  no  good  against  white  men.  We  whites 
have  a  demnition  corner  on  excellence.  The  rest 
were  made  to  wait  on  us,  bring  us  'our  smoking 
jacket,  our  slippers  and  our  pipe,  and  stir  up  the 
fire  in  the  grate.  But  what  is  this,  we  see!  Here 
is  what  the  New  York  Sun  said  on  September  24, 
1907,  under  the  caption,  "Is  China  Producing  Her 
Own  Steel?" 

"According  to  a  letter  from  Shanghai  published  on 
September  22  by  the  Philadelphia  PUBLIC  LEDGER,  the 
Chinese  will  soon  be  able  to  supply  all  the  materials 
needed  for  the  extensive  railway  systems  which  have  been 
planned  for  their  country  and  before  the  end  of  1908  will 
compete  with  Western  nations  in  the  market  for  steel 
products  afforded  by  Japan,  the  Philippines  and  other 
parts  of  the  Far  East. 

"The  development  of  the  iron  and  steel  industry  in  the 
interior  of  China  has  taken  place  so  suddenly  and  so 
silently  that  it  seems  to  have  attracted  very  little  atten- 
tion in  Europe,  though  in  July  of  this  year  the  United 
States  Steel  Corporation  ordered  a  trial  shipment  of  some 
2,500  tons  of  pig  iron  from  the  Chinese  works." 

We  wonder,  your  Honors,  if  the  tariff -dike  for 
iron  ought  to  be  "revised."  Our  tariff  on  pig  iron 
is1  |4  a  ton,  but  that  does  not  phaze  China,  where 
wages  are  but  a  few  cents  a  day.  Then,  besides, 
we  thought  we  had  "unexampled  supplies  of  raw 
materials"  and  that  we  were  "without  a.  peer  in 
our  natural  resources."  It  looks  as  if  nature  was 
doing  something  for  China  also.  But  we  continue: 


351 

"The  Chinese  iron  and  steel  factories  are  situated  at 
Han-Yang  on  the  Yangste  River  about  seven  hundred 
miles  from  its  junction  with  the  Shanghai  River" — 


Which,  your  Honors,  is  a  region  close  to  the  30th 
parallel  of  latitude,  about  the  same  as  Galveston, 
Texas. 


"Owing  to  the  abundance  of  ore  and  coal  procurable 
at  no  great  distance  and  to  the  UNLIMITED  SUPPLY 
OF  CHEAP  LABOR,  iron  and  steel  products  can  be 
turned  out  there  in  less  time  and  at  lower  prices  than 
must  be  paid  for  imported  articles.  The  ore  is  brought; 
from  the  mines  in  steel  barges  carrying  from  500  to  800 
.tons  apiece,  and  delivered  at  a  wharf  in  Han- Yang, 
whence  it  is  conveyed  in  steel  cars  to  the  works. 

"It  appears  that  many  bessemer  and  many  open  heartli 
Siemens  furnaces,  together  with  twenty  sets  of  rolling 
mills  for  rails,  are  already  in  running  order.  The  plant 
is  being  increased  continually.  According  to  statements 
made  by  foreign  engineers  employed  on  the  Hankow- 
Pekin  Railroad,  the  rails  provided  for  this  line  by  the 
iian-Yang  Company  are  actually  better  than  could  have 
been  procured  in  Europe.  By  the  utilization  of  the 
Siemens  furnaces  an  entire  elimination  of  the  phosphorus 
in  the  ore  has  been  attained.  Flat  and  round  steel,  bent 
over  again  and  doubled  under  a  steam  hammer,  show  no 
sign  of  traction.  All  tests  for  torsion,  elongation  and 
ductility  prove  the  Han- Yang  product  to  be  of  the  highest 
quality. 

"We  are  told  that  during  1908,  when  the  projected 
mills  will  be  in  full  swing,  their  aggregate  output  of  rails 
will  be  from  5,000  to  8,000  tons  a  month.  Most  of  these 
rails  will  be  used  in  China  itself,  as  by  a  decree  of  the 
Pekin  Government  all  Chinese  railways  must  buy  their 
materials,  so  far  as  this  may  be  possible,  from  the  Han- 
Yang  establishment,  which  is  looked  upon  as  a  national 
concern.  As  yet  many  of  the  things  indispensable  for 
railway  construction  and  operation  are  not  obtainable  in 
China,  but  an  immense  plant  for  supplying  passenger  and 
freight  cars,  bridge  steel  and  structural  steel,  is  to  be 
erected  at  Han- Yang  in  1908. 

"Many  years  ago  the  well  known  explorer  Baron  von 
Richtofen  announced  after  a  prolonged  investigation  of 
the  mineral  resources  of  the  interior  of  the  Middle  King- 
dom that  he  had  found  there  larger  deposits  of  true  coal 
and  high  grade  iron  ore  than  were  known  to  exist  any- 
where else  upon  the  surface  of  the  globe  "- 

And,  your  Honors,  the  Importing  Trust  is  all 
the  while  telling  us  we  are  the  "peerless  ones," 


352 

when  it  comes  to  raw  materials — we  have  got  "em 
all  beat !    But  back  to  our  reading : 

He  expressed  the  conviction  that  China  would  one  day 
become  the  chief  purveyor  of  those  articles  to  the  rest 
of  the  world." 

Why,  your  Honors,  we  thought  we  were  elected 
to  purvey  everything  to  everybody,  always,  and  al- 
ways ! 

' '  Nothing  but  the  lack  of  adequate  means  of  transpor- 
tation has  deferred  an  energetic  exploitation  of  China's 
iron  and  coal  mines." 

% 

Ah,  the  Importing  Trust  is  smoked  out  at  last. 
It  thought  we  never  would  find  out  about  those 
Chinese  iron  and  steel  mills;  that  we  would  "re- 
vise" the  dike  and  let  in  steel  and  such  things  free; 
and  it  then  could  tote  in  Chinese  steel  at  a  great 
big  profit.  It  is  bringing  in  Chinese  pig  iron  now, 
right  over  the  top  of  the  dike.  Let  us  drown  our 
own  steel  "trust,"  your  Honors,  by  taking  down 
our  dike,  put  100,000  steel  people  out  of  their  jobs 
here,  and  turn  our  whole  steel  business  over  to  the 
Importing  Trust.  We  move  the  Court  to  that 
effect.  More  of  the  reading,  however: 

"}Tow  that  the  work  has  been  fairly  started,  there  is 
reason  to  believe  that  early  in  the  twentieth  century 
Chinese  coal,  as  being  far  superior  in  quality,  will  drive 
the  Japanese  combustible  out  of  the  Far  Eastern  market, 
and  that  much  if  not  most  of  the  steel  products  used  on 
the  Pacific  coast  of  Asia  will  be  manufactured  in  the 
Middle  Kingdom." 

And  the  writer  might  have  said,  your  Honors, 
"much  if  not  most  of  the  steel  products  used  in 
the  United  States  of  America  will  be  manufactured 
in  the  Middle  Kingdom,"  unless  the  American  tar- 
iff-dike is  doubled  in  height. 


353 

Stil  more  of  this  confession  against  the  Import- 
ing Trust: 

"A  dozen  years  ago  it  seemed  probable  that  the  un- 
sealing of  China  by  means  of  railways  would  be  per- 
formed by  foreigners  and  that  its  incalculable  mineral 
wealth  would  fall  into  their  hands.  Of  late,  however,  a 
striking  change  has  taken  place  in  the  industrial  policy 
of  the  Pekin  Government.  Not  only  has  the  Empress 
Regent  decided  that  the  construction  and  management  of 
railways  must  be  undertaken  by  natives,  but  also  that  the 
materials  needed  for  those  purposes  must  be  produced  at 
home.  The  revolutionizing  spirit  is  likely  soon  to  spread 
from  industrial  to  political  affairs,  if  it  is  true  that  the 
Council  of  State,  which  was  reorganized  the  other  day, 
has  been  directed  to  examine  the  feasibility  of  giving 
China  a  constitution  at  an  early  date." 

How  can  these  intolerable  things  be,  your 
Honors?  Here  is  the  yellow  man  in  a  hot  country 
daring  to  kick  over  the  traces  and  make  things 
out  of  steel,  in  addition  to  making  things  already 
out  of  cotton  and  other  things,  when  neither 
the  yellow  man  nor  a  hot  country  was  to  do  such 
things.  We  thought  the  Chinaman  might  push  us1 
pretty  close  with  textiles  of  the  coarser  kinds;  but 
never  as  to  metals.  But  here  is  the  little  yellow 
scoundrel  in  a  sub-tropical  spot  jumping  with  both 
feet  on  our  iron  and  steel  flower  beds.  He  never 
was  "ordained"  to  do  such  things.  It  is  against  his 
native  genius.  He  was  to  raise  rice  and  cane  and 
do  up  our  collars.  He  wras  to  let  all  these  higher 
things  alone  for  us  to  do.  Because  he  never,  never, 
no  never  would  be  able  to  do  them  without  mak- 
ing a  mess  of  it.  He  was  to  do  the  things  he  could 
do"  the  cheapest  and  exchange  them  with  us  for 
things  we  co.uld  do  the  cheapest — that  was1  the  com- 
mand of  the  Importing  Trust  here.  We  now  see 
a  very  good  reason  why  our  war  fleet  should  go 
around  the  "Horn"  to  the  Pacific.  Water  is  run- 
ning up  hill  in  China!  And  who'd  a  thunk  it! 


354 

What  in  the  world  is  to  become  of  us  white  trash ! 
And  our  long-cherished  assurance  that  we  were 
the  whole  show!  We  weep  large,  round  'tears, 
your  Honors,  at  the  thought  of  our  disgrace.  The 
Chinese  would  not  stay  put.  The  "Orient"  and 
its  great  "trade"'  are  no  more.  Oh,  trade,  where  is 
thy  Orient!  Oh,  Orient,  where  is  thy  trade!  Go- 
ing, going,  going,  gone!  And  like  a  decent  tub 
we  ought  to  try  and  stand  on  our  own  bottom, 
your  Honors.  Why  not  stop  dreaming  about  suck- 
ing the  blood  of  the  "commerce  of  the  world?" 
Why  not  sit  down  and  earn  our  own  living  instead 
of  hoping  to  "exchange"  it  out  of  the  heathen? 

Your  Honors,  we  have  an  idea  that,  before  ly- 
ing down  quietly  and  admitting  that  the  law  of 
economic  gravitation  which  we  have  contrived  has 
any  thing  in  it,  by  their  goods  and  chattels  among 
the  newspapers  and  college  professors  active  and 
emeriti,  these  wily  plaintiffs  will  try  to  show  that 
it  has  so  many  exceptions  that  it  will  not  draw  at 
any  point  worth  mentioning.  When  we  say,  "If 
differences  between  pay-rolls  or  latitudes  be  not 
offset  by  handicaps,"  certain  things  will  follow, 
we  are  aware  that  the  word  "handicap"  can  cover 
a  great  many  conditions  adverse  to  the  truth  of 
the  law  in  some  particular,  cooked-up  case.  But 
what  we  stand  for  is  this  broad  fact  that,  taking 
any  two  considerable  areas  of  the  earth,  compet- 
ing against  each  other  under  absolute  freedom  of 
trade,  capital  in  operation  within  them  will  surely 
move  in  exact  accordance  with  the  law;  perhaps 
slowly  at  first,  but  as  surely  as  the  continued  ebb- 
ing and  flowing  of  the  tides,  the  final  speed  of 
the  gravitation  of  capital  to  be  determined  by  the 
size  of  their  differences  in  the  determining  condi- 
tions and  varying  directly  with  that  size.  We 


355 

would  especially  caution  you,  your  Honors,  not  to 
be  taken  unawares  by  any  criticism  of  this  law 
which  the  wily  plaintiffs,  or  either  of  them,  may 
hereafter  make.  We  do  not  doubt  that  they  will 
cite  a  very  long  and  formidable  list  of  exceptions 
in  cases  which  ought  to  demonstrate  the  truth  of 
our  proposition.  But  you  will  soon  observe  that 
any  of  the  conditions  which  they  will  claim  would 
take  a  case  out  from  the  list  of  those  proving  the 
law,  are  merely  transient  conditions,  some  of  them 
entirely  within  the  control  of  man,  and  others, 
though  not  in  his  control,  likely  to  become  modi- 
fied with  time  and  no  longer  prevent  the  migra- 
tion of  capital. 

In  order  more  fully  to  anticipate  all  the  un- 
fair arguments  of  the  wily  plaintiffs'  counsel,  let 
us  ourselves  examine  into  this  word  "handicap" 
and  the  sense  in  which  it  is  used  in  this  connec- 
tion. 

"Handicap,"  as  we  have  used  the  word,  means 
any  circumstance  offsetting  a  profit  otherwise  pos- 
sible in  trade;  and  this  circumstance  may  exist 
in  either  of  two  countries  or  localities  which 
otherwise  would  buy  and  sell  together.  And  it 
would  still  be  a  "handicap,"  whatever  its  size  as 
compared  with  the  profit;  that  is,  whether  larger, 
equal  to,  or  less  than  the  profit.  But  in  using 
the  word  "offset"  in  the  law,  we  mean  such  an 
"offsetting"  as  would  prevent  the  capital  from 
moving  to  a  different  area  of  production.  Further- 
more it  is  plain  that  a  "handicap"  is  an  "advan- 
tage," or  an  "advantage"  a  "handicap,"  according 
to  your  point  of  view;  as,  for  instance,  a  tariff 
which  acts  as  a  handicap  against  the  Importing 
Trust,  acts  on  the  other  hand  as  an  advantage  to 
the  domestic  industry  threatened  by  the  Import- 


356 

ing  Trust  with  competition.  Again,  a  "handicap" 
may  be  a  natural  one,  or  one  presented  by  nature; 
or  it  may  be  artificial,  or  one  made  by  man  to 
offset  a  natural  advantage  held  by  another.  Of 
course,  handicaps  made  by  nature  in  the  line  of 
large  land-masses,  ocean  and  air-currents,  latitude, 
longitude,  altitude,  soils,  water  supplies,  mines, 
forests,  and  the  like,  are  things  for  which  we  have 
to  trust  nature,  and,  as  far  as  relates  to  their  orig- 
inal quantity  or  quality  at  the  moment  of  dis- 
covery, are  not  alterable  by  human  means; 
though  of  course  wrater-courses  might  be  changed, 
wells  and  irrigation  plants  constructed,  forests  cut 
away  and  soils  exhausted  or  enriched.  On  the 
other  hand,  handicaps  arising  from  labor  condi- 
tions, volume  of  capital,  machinery,  methods,  sani- 
tation, transportation,  and  the  like,  as  well  as  tar- 
iffs and  other  regulations,  are  alterable  handicaps 
or  advantages,  which  may  be  changed  at  will 
Keeping  in  mind  these  various  kinds  of  handicaps, 
we  may  construct  a  table  covering  as  many  as  we 
can  think  of  and  group  them  according  to  their 
inherent  qualities.  For  instance,  we  can  make  two 
general  groups  for  the  alterable  and  unalterable 
handicaps;  and  we  may  subdivide  these  groups, 
separating  the  alterables  into  governmental  handi- 
caps, or  those  made  by  the  government;  and  local 
ones,  or  those  arising  from  local  circumstances; 
and  the  unalterables  into  limited  handicaps,  or 
those  which  are  fixed  as  to  locality;  and  universal 
handicaps,  or  those  which  may  be  found  anywhere. 
According  to  this  arrangement,  our  table  reads 
thus : 


357 

HANDICAPS. 


ALTERABLE. 


Governmental. 


Local. 


in  which  are  in- 
cluded all  govern- 
mental regulations 
or  devices  to  hin- 
der imports  or  ex- 
ports, whether  tar- 
iffs or  other  arbi- 
trary regulations 
and  limitations; 
and  all  regulations 
which  actually 
hinder  trade  with- 
out being  made 
for  that  purpose. 

such  as  inhere  in 
wage-scales;  capi- 
tal;  labor  and 
health  conditions; 
machinery;  organ- 
ization; methods  ; 
freights;  transpor- 
tation, and  the 
like. 


UNALTERABLE. 


Limited 


Universal. 


such  as  inhere  in 
latitude  ;  1  o  n  g  i- 
tude;  ocean  cur- 
rents ;  air  cur- 
rents; land-masses; 
altitude,  and  the 
like. 

such  as  soils;  wa- 
ter -  supplies; 
mines;  forests,  and 
the  like. 


Your  Honors,  this  table  will  be  of  use  in  testing 
the  strength  of  the  arguments  of  counsel  for  the 
wily  plaintiffs  against  our  theory  that  the  final 
position  of  a  nation  is  irrevocably  fixed  in  the 
cost  of  its  production ;  and  'that  it  is  scientifically 
possible  to  determine  the  index-number  for  each 
nation  and  by  a  comparison  of  numbers  determine 
to  a  certainty,  if  free  trade  prevails  between  them, 


358 

which  of  any  two  nations  is  destined  to  indus- 
trial annihilation.  Our  friends,  the  enemy,  deal 
constantly  in  glittering  generalities;  we  might  say, 
your  Honors,  in  "dazzling  generalities,"  which  put 
the  intellectual  sight  of  the  unwary  out  of  com- 
mision  and  make  them  an  easy  prey  to  these  wily 
plaintiffs  in  their  stage  fury  against  our  "trusts," 
otherwise  our  client,  American  Production.  And 
it  is  the  purpose  of  this  little  table  to  rip  off  some 
of  the  isinglass  and  other  tinsel  from  the  glitter- 
ing phrases  of  counsel  for  the  wily  plaintiffs  and, 
if  that  be  possible,  get  some  sort  of  a  rational  line 
on  them.  For  example,  if  you  will  remember, 
your  Honors,  somewhere  in  the  argument  of  coun- 
sel for  the  Importing  Trust,  the  wily  plaintiff  here- 
in, as  near  as  appears  from  our  hasty  notes,  he 
said  something  like  this: 

"Our  superiority  over  any  other  people  in  the  world 
in  manufacturing  has  been  attained  during  the  last  thirty 
years  through  the  following  factors: 

"First: — The  energy  and  enterprise  of  our  people. 

"Second: — Our  inventive  talent  and  the  marvelous 
increase  in  labor-saving  machinery. 

"Third: — The  bountiful  supply  of  food  and  raiment 
for  the  support  of  workmen,  and  the  unlimited  stores 
of  iron,  copper,  lead,  and  other  minerals  as  the  raw 
material  of  manufacturing. 

"Fourth: — Low  tax  rate,  as  compared  with  our  chief 
competitors  in  manufacturing,  thereby  lessening  the 
burdens  of  industry." 

Before  analyzing  this  list  of  wonders  whereby 
we  are  the  natural  "workshop  of  the  world,"  wo 
pause  to  remark  that  it  was  in  part  this  very  list 
of  wonders,  prepared  by  England's  Exporting 
Trust,  which  during  much  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 


359 

tury,  was  put  forward  as  the  reason  why  England 
was  destined  to  be  to  the  end  of  time  "the  work- 
shop of  the  world ;"  and  we  wonder  why  this  great 
honor  has  now  been  transferred  to  us.  England 
had  passed  through  centuries  of  protection  and, 
oxpressly  because  of  protection,  had  become  the 
wealthiest  and  most  powerful  nation  in  the  world. 
We  have  likewise  passed  through  a  long  period  of 
at  least  partial  protection  and  in  our  turn  have 
become  the  wealthiest  and  most  powerful  nation 
in  the  world.  But  England  had  congested  her 
working  people  upon  manufacturing  industries 
and  had  neglected  to  balance  her  food-production 
with  her  textile  and  metal-production;  and  because 
of  her  weak  home  market  and  the  vibrations  of 
Ihe  "States"  between  free  trade  and  protection, 
which  alternately  opened  and  shut  her  greatest 
foreign  market,  England's  manufacturing  em- 
ployees were  at  times  in  straights  from  what  is 
railed  "overproduction"  but  which  was,  in  fact, 
uiider-cousumption.  Therefore,  taking  advantage 
of  n.  period  when  English  factory  hands  were  in 
distress  because  of  our  shutting  English  goods 
from  this  market  by  our  tariff  of  1842,  and  also 
of  the  famine  in  Ireland,  which  served  as  a  bogus 
object  lesson  for  the  orators  of  the  English  Ex- 
porting Trust,  said  Exporting  Trust,  under  the 
pretense  of  securing  a  "cheap  loaf,"  prevailed  up- 
on the  English  people  to  sweep  away  their  Corn 
Laws,  or  laws  protecting  English  agriculture;  and 
because  of  their  great  accumulation  of  capital, 
machinery,  and  skilled  labor,  through  something 
like  six  hundred  years  of  progressive  protection, 
believing  themselves  destined  to  be  "the  workshop 
of  the  world"  the  English  manufacturers,  that  is, 
the  said  English  Exporting  Trust,  looking  only  to 


360 

its  enrichment,  and  recking  not  of  the  degrada- 
tion of  its  employes,  also  conceded  the  abolition 
of  import  tariffs  upon  manufactures.  Then  this 
same  English  Exporting  Trust  busied  itself  to  per- 
suade the  nations  that  England  was  destined  by 
nature  to  be  "the  workshop  of  the  world ;"  that  the 
interests  of  the  rest  of  the  world  required  all  other 
nations  also  to  take  down  all  tariff  walls  against 
English  manufactures,  which  they  thus  could  se- 
cure at  lower  costs  than  by  their  production  at 
home;  in  the  same  manner  that  England  had  cut 
down  all  tariffs  on  "raw  materials,"  which  she 
could  import  more  economically  than  she  could 
produce  them.  Then  it  was,  in  England's  hey-day 
of  trade,  before  other  nations  had  developed  their 
own  manufacturing  resources,  that  our  Importing 
Trust,  taking  its  cue  from  its  English  end,  the  Eng- 
lish Exporting  Trust,  began  to  teach  our  people 
that  England  was  the  natural  "workshop  of  the 
world,"  because  she  enjoyed  above  all  other  nations 
the  advantages  numbers  1  and  2  in  the  list  just 
cited  from  counsel  for  these  wily  plaintiffs.  Has 
free  trade  been  good  for  England,  your  Honors? 
If  it  has,  how  is  it  that  in  less  than  a  century  we, 
who  in  our  ignorance  have  stood  fast  for  at  least 
a  small  measure  of  protection  for  manufactures, 
have  beaten  England  from  her  position  as  "work- 
shop of  the  world"  and  are  now  listening  to  the 
claim  that  we  are  "the  workshop  of  the  world," 
for  the  same  reason  that  England  was  the  same 
thing  but  a  short  time  ago?  And  if  we  follow 
English  example  into  tariff  "revision,"  what  earn- 
est have  we  that  we  shall  not  share  her  fate  and 
drop,  as  she  is  dropping,  towards  the  tail  of  the 
world-procession  in  production  and  civilization? 
We  have  not  yet  emerged  from  the  protection 


361 

period  which  made  her  great.  Should  we  be  eager 
also  to  enter  upon  the  "revision"  or  Free  Trade 
period,  which  is1  making  her  so  small? 

We  said  a  moment  ago,  but  ironically,  "We  won- 
der why  this  great  honor  (that  of  being  'the 
workshop  of  the  world')  has  now  been  transferred 
to  us."  We  think  we  know.  These  wily  plain- 
tiffs are  but  the  foreign  ends  of  England's  Export- 
ing and  Importing  Trust  respectively.  That  is, 
our  Importing  Trust  is  the  foreign  end  of  Eng- 
land's Exporting  Trust  while  our  Exporting  Trust 
is  but  the  foreign  end  of  England's  Importing 
Trust.  These  "trusts"  have  no  heart,  no  soul,  no 
nervous  system,  and  no  patriotism.  They  are  gla- 
cial in  their  emotions.  They  are  the  only  destruc- 
tive "trusts"  in  any  country;  and  they  go  indiff- 
erently from  country  to  country  in  search  of  the 
richest  spoil.  As  long  as  England  offered  the  best 
returns,  they  patted  her  on  the  back  and  called 
her  "the  workshop  of  the  world;"  and  adjusted 
her  by  their  cryptic  influences  to  that  condition 
best  fitted  for  her  uttermost  spoliation.  Now  that 
they  have  about  finished  England;  now  that  the 
Bishop  of  London  can  say  "They  have  asked  me 
how  I  reconciled  the  belief  in  the  Good  God  lov- 
ing all  his  children  with  the  wretched  million  in 
East  London  who  seem  abandoned  by  both  God 
and  man;"  now  that  such  fearful  conditions  exist 
in  England;  now  that  England,  by  her  free  trade 
practices,  abandons  a  million  people  in  one  city  to 
starvation,  giving  to  a  million  workers  in  other 
lands1  the  work,  the  wages  for  which  should  feed, 
warm  and  clothe  this  sad  and  hopeless  million  in 
London;  now  that  the  English  orange  seems  to 
be  sucked  dry,  these  international  wily  plaintiffs, 


362 

whose  sole  business  is  the  spoliation  of  wage-pro- 
ducers the  world  around,  have  passed  to  the  Ameri- 
can orange,  which,  by  dint  of  the  same  flattery,  the 
same  thrusting  forward  as  "the  workshop  of  the 
world,"  the  same  specious  announcement  of  eter- 
nal superiority,  they  hope  to  suck  as  dry  as  they 
have  sucked  the  English  citrus.  And  after  that, 
what?  Next!  We  think  we  see  who  is  next,  your 
Honors.  We  are  already  being  introduced  to  the 
new  candidate  for  the  flattery  of  these  wily  plain- 
tiffs*. The  new  hero,  the  new  "workshop  of  the 
world"  is  Germany.  Already  these  wily  plaintiffs, 
through  Roosevelt  diplomacy,  have  effected  the 
Gorman  Agreement,  which  virtually  levels  our  tar- 
iff-dike towards  Germany;  and  already  the  psalm- 
singers  of  these  wily  plaintiffs  are  draping  the 
shoulders  of  German  skill  and  genius  with  the  same 
mantel  of  superiority  with  which  they  first  draped 
England's  and  then  ours1,  as  they  led  us  in  suc- 
cession to  industrial  slaughter.  And  thus  these 
wily  plaintiffs  will  go  on  in  their  cruel  career, 
despoiling  one  nation  after  another,  until  modern 
intelligence  and  humanity  put  an  end  forever  to 
their  havoc. 

And  now,  your  Honors,  let  us  take  up  this  list 
of  wonderful  virtues,  four  in  number,  offered  by 
counsel  for  these  wily  plaintiffs  but  a  short  time 
back,  and  compare  each  one  of  them  with  our  list 
of  handicaps,  also  offered  to  you  a  little  while 
ago,  and  test  their  validity  as1  bases  upon  which  we 
may  rest  as  the  superlatively  superlative  in  pro- 
duction through  all  the  countless  ages  hence,  un- 
til the  sun  hangs  a  black  moon  in  the  sky  and  our 
planet  has  been  gathered  to  its  fathers,  "Where 
the  wicked  cease  from  troubling  and  the  weary 
are  at  rest." 


Making  this  comparison  of  the  wily  plaintiffs* 
list  of  wonders  and  our  own  list  of  handicaps,  we 
observe  that  counsel's  reason  No.  1  for  our 
terribleiiess  as  world-beaters  is  a  local  and  alter- 
able handicap,  as  it  is  included  in  "labor  and 
health  conditions;"  and  is  a  mere  trap  s'et  for  the 
unwary.  If  we  ventured  out  on  ice  as  thin  as  that 
in  the  "conquest  of  the  world's  markets,"  we  would 
be  certain  to  fall  in.  By  the  way,  "our  people" 
are  practically  all  European  people,  except  those 
of  African  descent;  and  whatever  "energy  and  en- 
terprise'' we  may  have  is  a  rill  which  rises  no 
higher  than  its  source.  Now  as  to  reason  No.  2 
for  our  almighty  almightiness  as  food  for  the  Im- 
porting Trust,  that  reason  also  falls  in  the  same 
subdivision  as  No.  1  in  our  table,  both  as  to 
machinery  and  as  to  "inventive  talent,"  which  lat- 
ter is  all  imported  and  therefore  not  peculiar  to  us. 

Taking  up  counsel's  reason  No.  3  for  our  pe- 
culiar peculiarness  as  all-conquerors  of  the 
"worlds  markets,"  that,  according  to  our  'table, 
is  an  unalterable  universal  handicap,  which  exists 
against  us  in  the  cost-20  world  about  sixteen-fold 
as*  much  as  it  exists  for  us  in  our  own  cost-100 
country. 

Passing  to  counsel's  breath-taker  No.  4,  we  find 
it  an  alterable  governmental  handicap.  If  we  lean- 
ed on  that  reed  alone,  in  face  of  the  great  handi- 
cap which  the  whole  world  holds  against  us  in  a 
pay-roll  but  one-fifth  as  high  as  ours,  it  would  let 
us  down  and  we  surely  would  fall  to  our  own 
hurt. 

And  so,  your  Honors,  in  every  case  in  which  the 
b.'mdmon    of   the    wily   plaintiffs,    the   Importing 
Trust,   sound   the  cymbals  of  triumph  over  the 
"unexampled''  or  "inexhaustible"  muchness  of  our 


364 

exceeding  great  much,  a  comparison  of  our  alleged 
specific  "corners"  with  those  named  in  our  table 
will  show  that,  as  bases  upon  which  to  build  our 
national  fortunes,  they  are  as  unstable  as  water 
and  at  best  could  serve  only  as  fleeting  pretexts 
for  damaging  the  dike  and  pouring  water  on  the 
Importing  Trust  mill. 

We  would  especially  put  you  on    your    guard, 
your  Honors,  against  certain  superficial  assaults 
which  we  are  certain  counsel  for  the  wrily  plain- 
tiffs will  make  upon  the  law  we  have  explained. 
They  will  tell  you,  for  instance,  that  latitude  is* 
not  always  connected  with  climate  in  such  a  way 
as  to  give  the  colder  to  the  higher  and  the  warmer 
to  the  lower  latitude.    They  may  tell  you,  for  in- 
stance, that,  latitude  for  latitude,  our  whole  Atlan- 
tic coast  is  colder  than  our  Pacific  coast;  that, 
say,  England  is  as  far  north  as  our  Labrador  and 
yet  has  earlier  springs  than  New  England;  and  so 
on,  in  order  to  prove  that  cost  of  subsistence  does 
not  vary  directly  with  latitude.     It  is  true,  your 
Honors,  that  here  and  there  ocean  currents  running 
close  to  the  land  affect  its  temperature;  and  that 
certain  localities  thus  affected  may  have  either  a 
higher  or  lower  temperature  than  places  in  the  same 
latitude  but  far  removed  from  the  neighborhood  of 
such  ocean  currents.    It  is  also  true  that  places  in 
the  same  latitude,  but  at  different  heights  or  alti- 
tudes above  sea-level,  will  have  different  climates. 
We  all  know  that  the  high  table-lands  of  the  tropics 
have  climates  very  much  like  our  own,  although 
down  the  hill  a  little  way  it  may  be  much  hotter 
and  the  style  of  dress  of  Mother  Eve  would  be  very 
burdensome.     Then  again,  they  say  that,  in  a  gen- 
eral  way,  distances    from    the  oceans  also  govern 
temperature  and  that  the  larger  and  heavier  the 


365 

land-mass,  the  more  slowly  does  its  temperature 
change  from  season  to  season.  Nevertheless,  your 
Honors,  latitude  after  all  is  the  strongest  factor 
among  those  affecting  climates,  and,  taking  the 
earth  around,  it  will  be  fouud  that,  comparing  any 
two  considerable  areas  of  the  earth  together,  the 
average  temperature  of  the  area  in  the  higher  lat- 
itude will  be  lower  than  that  in  the  lower  latitude; 
and  that,  the  greater  their  differences  in  average 
latitude,  the  greater  will  be  their  differnces  in  aver- 
age temperatures,  the  higher  latitude  uniformly 
showing  the  lower  and  the  lower  the  higher  tem- 
perature. Take  our  own  country,  for  instance: 
The  higher  temperature  of  our  Pacific  coast  is  re- 
duced to  the  common  world's  average,  from  latitude 
to  latitude,  by  the  lower  temperature  of  our  At- 
lantic coast. 

Therefore  we  say  that,  when  all  is  said  and  done, 
your  Honors,  and  any  two  large  areas  of  the  earth's 
surface  are  considered  as  competing  under  "re- 
vised" tariff-dikes,  differences  in  latitude,  provid- 
ed that  they  are  worth  noticing  at  all,  are  the  only 
things  which  finally  count  The  greater  number  of 
possible  "handicaps,"  as  the  word  is  used  in  our 
law,  l>olong,  as  our  table  shows,  among  the  alter- 
ables;  that  is,  any  one  of  them  can  be  altered  at 
any  lime,  a  country  desires;  and  if  such  alteration 
Avas  all  that  stood  between  any  country's  Exporting 
Trust  and  our  market,  with  its  80%  higher  cost 
of  production  than  the  world's  average,  all  the 
wealth  of  that  Exporting  Trust  would  be  brought 
to  bear  upon  that  country's  rulers  to  effect  the  al- 
teration. Our  position  is  so  extraordinary  with  re- 
gard to  wages  and  so  with  regard  to  the  absolutely 
necessary  cost  of  production,  that,  with  our  tariff- 
dike  low,  to  an ve  our  domestic  market  to  the  Tm- 


366 

porting  Trust  here,  the  alteration  on  the  part  of 
other  countries  would  need  to  extend  to  but  one 
or  two  of  the  alterables  in  our  list.  In  the  matter 
of  the  alterable  of  wage-scales,  they  are  already  so 
low  abroad  that  no  alteration  there  will  be  neces- 
sarj-  to  take  our  market,  if  only,  as  Mr.  Taft  and 
Dr.  Butler  so  strongly  urge,  our  governmental  al- 
terable, the  tariff-dike,  is  suitably  altered.  But 
even  if  our  dike  is  not  "revised"  to  fit  the  case,  if 
foreign  countries1  materially  alter  their  local  alter- 
able  of  machinery,  unless  AVC  in  turn  build  our  dike 
higher  to  meet  the  change,  they  will  take  our  do- 
mestic market.  As  we  have  before  stated,  the  Ger- 
man Government  has  secured  the  alteration  of  our 
governmental  alterable,,  the  administration  clause 
of  the  Dingley  Law,  in  such  a  way  that  the  Ger- 
mans now  practically  have  a  great  part  of  our  do- 
mestic market,  about  the  same  as  they  would  if 
there  was  no  dike  at  all.  Our  swiftly  increasing 
imports  from  Germany  since  that  alteration  was 
made  by  Mr.  Koosevelt  to  please  Herr  Von  Stern- 
burg,  prove  the  fickle  character  of  these  alterables. 
Even  without  this  lift,  Germany's  eost-30  produc- 
tion was  fast  making  our  tariff-dike  ineffective  to 
shut  out  German  goods. 

So  it  will  be  found  that  nearly  all  the  handi- 
caps which  the  Importing  Trust  declares  are  in  our 
favor  and  would  give  us  the  "the  markets  of  the 
world,"  even  with  the  dike  merely  "revised"  in  any 
way  but  uniformly  upward,  are  such  that,  if  such 
handicaps  wrere  then  all  that  stood  between  any 
nation  and  its  desire,  they  would  be  quickly  dis- 
counted with  appropriate  alterations  at  home  by 
such  nation. 

And  it  will  be  further  found  that  the  handicaps 
credited  to  us  which  are  not  alterables  and  so  too 


367 

tickle  to  be  trusted,  are  universal  unalterables,  and 
therefore,  cannot  be  depended  upon  at  all  in  "re- 
vised" tariff  competition  even  with  single  nations 
of  any  large  areas  of  soil,  to  say  nothing  about  their 
sustaining  us  in  a  struggle  with  the  whole  world 
outside. 

So  much  for  the  "handicaps"  which  the  Import- 
ing Trust,  playing  spider  to  our  fly,  says  are  so 
perennially  in  our  favor  that  we  need  fear  nothing 
from  "revision." 

Now  what  of  the  handicaps  against  us,  the  trump 
cards  in  the  hands  of  our  competitors?  In  the 
first  place,  their  alterable  governmental  handicaps 
fully  offset  ours,  with  the  exception  of  benign  old 
Mother  England,  who  is  always  generous  before  she 
is  just  and  favors1  all  creation  before  she  favors  her 
own  children.  She  has  no  governmental  alterables 
to  oppose  us  with;  and  she  is  dying  by  inches  be- 
cause of  her  generosity.  As  to  local  alterables,  the 
world  beats  us  hollow  in  wage-scales;  it  has  as 
much  capital  as  we  have  and  a  lot  of  our  capital  in 
the  bargain,  about  a  billion  of  our  dollars  having 
left  us  in  the  last  few  years  to  build  foreign  fac- 
tories and  join  our  Importing  Trust  in  its  attack 
on  our  dike.  The  world's  labor  and  health  are,  on 
the  average,  just  as  good  as  ours.  Its  machinery  is 
looking  up,  either  from  buying  ours  or  making  its 
own.  It  seldom  buys  our  dear  stuff  more  than  once 
unless  it  is  patented.  It  usually  copies  our  ma- 
chinery after  a  few  purchases.  As  to  freights  and 
transportation,  England  and  Germany  are  building 
canals;  and  the  steamship  lines  arc  making  for 
them  through  rates  from  Europe  to  Chicago  lower 
than  those  we  pay  from  New  York  to  Chicago;  and 
their  organization  and  methods  are  in  their  own 
hands  and  would  be  brought  up  to  standard  in  a 


368 

moment  if  their  lagging  behind  us  in  such  matters 
was  the  only  thing  which  kept  them  from,  our  mark- 
et; but  the  great  advantage  in  their  wage-scale,  as 
they  say  themselves,  makes  modern  machinery  and 
organization  unnecessary  to  capture  our  domestic 
market,  if  our  tariff-dike  is  not  too  high,  or  if  Ger- 
man Agreements  are  in  full  swing.  If  weakness  in 
any  one  of  these  points  really  limits  their  markets 
with  us  they  attend  to  it  quicker.  Now  setting  off 
the  universal  unalterables  which  we  have  against 
those  which  they  have,  there  are  left  the  most  im- 
portant of  all,  viz :  the  limited  unalterables;  and  a 
glance  shows1  that  we  are  hopelessly  licked  by 
20,000,000  square  miles  of  the  earth's  surface  in 
every  limited  unalterable,  and  that  in  this  group 
stand  the  greatest  factors  in  the  world  for  cheap- 
ness of  produtcion.  We  have  already  indicated  the 
portions  of  the  earth  which  "lay  over"  us  in  these 
respects  and  we  will  not  repeat.  But  the  fact  alone 
of  our  hopeless  position  in  regard  to  the  limited  un- 
alterables should  make  us  all  join  in  a  grand  "shut- 
up"  antiphonal  whenever  the  choir  of  the  Import- 
ing Trust  intones  its  anthem  "Revision  of  the 
Dike."  The  only  direction  in  which  the  dike  should 
be  "revised"  is  skyward;  and  get  there  as  soon  as 
possible. 


XXX. 

THESE  WILY  PLAINTIFFS,  LIKE  GREAT  SPIDERS,  HAVE 
SPUN  THEIR  ENTANGLING  WEB  OVER  THE  WHITE 

HOUSE. 

We  think  we  have  explained,  your  Honors,  the 
nature  of  these  wrily  plaintiffs.     They  are  mere 


301) 

groups  of  braiii-cells  developed  by  an  environment 
which  compelled  unremitting  acquisitiveness.  No 
conscience  has  ever  been  identified  among  these 
brain-cells.  They  have  been  gathered  by  centuries 
of  circumstance.  In  this  country,  they  are  an  an- 
achronism. Thy  never  open  their  mouths  except  to 
bleat  ''foreign  trade."  None  of  their  newspaper 
contingent  ever  mentions  any  foreign  country  with- 
out mechanically  stating  its  importance  in  "trade." 
This  peculiar  vein  in  these  wily  plaintiff's  is  in- 
herited by  them  from  their  English  ancestors.  Eng- 
land has  long  been  a  ridiculous  country.  She  is 
about  the  size  of  New  York  State;  but  she  has 
kicked  up  more  bobbery  than  any  other  country  in 
the  world — far  more  than  we  ever  have ;  and  we  are 
about  seventy  times  its  size.  How  has  she  done 
so?  By  foreign  trade.  By  pawning  her  patrimony ; 
by  auctioning  off  her  natural  deposits  of  iron  and 
coal  in  the  competitive  "markets  of  the  world." 
England  is  like  a  woman,  who,  attiring  herself 
with  a  richness  beyond  her  income  sufficient  for 
temperate  living,  pawns  her  household  furniture 
piece  by  piece.  Thus  she  has  caused  to  be  advanced 
to  herself  great  loans  on  her  furniture,  putting  up 
as  a  pledge  with  the  World  Uncle  her  title  to  long 
life.  She  has  sold  herself  for  power  and  wealth ;  and 
foreign  trade  has  been  her  instrument  of  sale.  Of 
course  "trade"  is  the  first  thing  Englishmen  think 
about.  That  is  what  they  are  always  spilling  their 
blood  for;  because  foreign  trade  is  the  only  means 
by  which  England  can  maintain  herself  in  any  size 
comparable  to  that  of  her  continental  contempor- 
aries; like  a  poor  little  frog,  inflated  to  ten  times 
its  natural  dimensions  by  the  wind  of  foreign 
trade !  This  is  true  because  every  country's  actual 
size  in  trade  is  fixed  by  the  consuming  power  of  its 


370 

own  population.  In  other  words,  a  country,  nor- 
mally, is  as  rich  as  its  own  domestic  market.  That 
tells  the  story  of  national  health.  The  foreign  mark- 
et of  a  nation  tells  the  story  of  the  accumulation 
of  wealth  in  the  hands  of  a  country's  Importing  and 
Exporting  Trusts;  of  the  pawning  of  the  natural 
stores  of  the  nation  for  the  benefit  of  its  foreign 
trading  class.  By  dissipating  her  natural  wealth  in 
the  most  wanton  way,  and  by  congesting  her  wage- 
producers  on  narrower  and  narrower  lines  of  em- 
ployment, England  has  anticipated  by  centuries  the 
legitimate  income  from  her  resources.  Her  own 
people  were  too  few  to  buy  enough  of  her  products 
to  result  in  the  wealth  to  which  she  aspired.  There- 
fore foreign  markets  became  to  her  the  conditions 
of  her  remaining  the  proud  Brittania  which  so  long 
has  ruled  the  wave.  A  little  country  naturally,  for- 
eign trade  was  used  to  make  her  great  artificially. 
Now,  your  Honors,  as  we  have  said  before,  these 
wily  plaintiffs  are  not  of  sudden  growth.  They 
came  to  us  from  England.  They  are  mere  English 
replica  of  English  editions  of  English  traditions. 
In  this  noble  country  they  are  not  a  drop  in  the 
bucket  of  us.  We  are  a  great  country  by  nature 
and  do  not  require  the  artifice  of  foreign  trade 
maintained  by  these  plaintiffs.  But  it  is  they  who 
live  by  foreign  trade  and  it  is  they  who  have  con- 
trol especially  of  our  great  seaboard  cities,  and 
have  studiously  made  it  the  fashion  of  the  country 
to  speak  of  foreign  trade  as  if  foreign  trade  were 
that  wherein  we  lived  and  moved  and  had  our  be- 
ing. We  are  merely  hypnotic  subjects,  your  Hon- 
ors. We,  the  great  people  of  this  country,  have  no 
need  of  foreign  trade  but  are  burdened  and  cursed 
by  it  for  the  private  benefit  of  these  wily  plaintiffs. 
They  take  their  tolls  from  us  at  every  turn.  We 


371 

pay  iiiglier  prices  than  we  should  because  of  our 
Exporting  Trust,  which  sends  our  products  abroad 
and  out  of  our  reach.  Why,  your  Honors,  we  send 
over  two  hundred  and  twenty-five  millions  of 
dollars'  worth  of  meat  of  various  kinds  abroad 
every  year,  instead  of  keeping  it  at  home  to 
lower  the  price  to  ourselves.  And  so  it  is  with 
wheat  and  corn,  cotton,  petroleum  and  other  things. 
And  so  on  the  other  hand,  we  get  lower  wages  than 
we  ought,  because  of  the  Importing  Trust  bringing 
in  nearly  two  billions  of  dollars'  worth  of  goods 
a  year  and  extinguishing  our  employment  to  that 
extent;  for  we  could  make  every  cent's  worth  of 
these  goods  ourselves,  or  equally  satisfactory  sub- 
stitutes, if  it  were  not  for  our  leaking  tariff-dike. 

But  a  mere  handful  of  our  people,  by  this  con- 
stant hypnotism,  this  assiduous  suggestion  through 
the  newspapers,  keep  foreign  trade  before  us  as  the 
only  thing  to  hope  for.  Why,  your  Honors,  the 
whole  thing  is  too  absurd  to  talk  about.  For 
every  penny's  worth  of  foreign  trade  we  do, 
we  do  nearly  sixty  cents'  worth  of  domestic 
business,  as  shown  by  our  bank  clearings.  And 
every  cent's  worth  of  foreign  trade  we  do  de- 
stroys at  least  ten  cents'  worth  of  business  by 
blocking  exchanges  which  otherwise  would  have 
come  from  a  like  amount  of  business  having  been 
done  here.  The  whole  thing  is  of  incalcuable  dam- 
age to  us ;  and  yet  it  is  our  one  hope  of  glory !  We 
know  who  thus  sets  it  up,  do  we  not?  We  know  for 
whom  it  is  profitable  to  increase  exports  to  Cuba 
by  a  few  millions;  even  though  by  the  same  Reci- 
procity Treaty  our  imports  increase  so  much  that  we 
are  scoring  a  national  net  loss  of  $66,000,000  a  year. 
WThy,  your  Honors,  it  would  be  much  cheaper  for  us 
to  pay  our  Exporting  Trust  f  10,000,000  a  year  clean 


372 

money  out  of  the  national  treasury,  and  abrogate 
the  Cuban  Treaty,  than  to  continue  the  Treaty  in 
force  and  buy  business  for  our  Exporting  Trust  at 
such  a  tremendous  loss.  But,  your  Honors,  it  is 
too  plain  for  talk  that,  just  as  Mother  England  does 
for  her  great  parasites,  we,  too,  both  for  our  Im- 
porting Trust  and  our  Exporting  Trust,  buy  foreign 
trade  at  an  enormous1  price.  And  just  as  England 
does  in  keeping  a  great  navy  for  her  parasites,  we 
too  pay  for  ,it  all  out  of  the  treasury  of  our  national 
wealth  and  compromise  our  progress ;  but  these  wily 
plaintiffs  put  the  whole  proceeds  of  their  trading 
in  their  pockets.  Foreign  trade  is  their  business. 
It  is  the  only  thing  in  sight  for  them.  Therefore 
they  industriously  work  the  newspapers  to  make  us 
think  it  is  the  only  thing  in  sight  for  us  also. 
Aren't  our  brain-cells  of  a  very  unsophisticated 
sort,  your  Honors,  that  we  should  thus  keep  on  driv- 
ing fish  to  the  private  nets  of  these  wily  plaintiffs ! 
Your  Honors,  using  our  vocabulary  with  the 
same  discreetness  with  which  Mr.  Roosevelt  uses 
his,  we  aver  that  these  wily  plaintiffs  are  indeed 
"malefactors  of  great  wealth"  and  that  together 
they  form  what  is  easily  the  wickedest  "trust"  in  al' 
the  world.  We  are  aware,  however,  your  Honors, 
that  both  of  these  wily  plaintiffs  are  highly  elusive 
as  well  as  illusory.  We  do  not  say  that  they  are 
formally  incorporated.  We  do  not  even  say  that 
they  have  any  definite  organization  as  a  whole.  It 
is  true  that  powerful  trade  organizations,  such  as 
the  Association  of  National  Manufacturers,  as1  ex- 
ample, seem  to  work  together  for  the  destruction  of 
our  tariff-dike  with  a  harmony  that  is  miraculous 
if  it  be  not  intelligently  concerted.  It  is  true  that 
"boards  of  trade"  and  similar  bodies  move  towards 
the  destruction  of  our  tariff-dike  with  a  rhythm 


373 

that  suggests  conspired  as  well  as  inspired  action. 
It  is  also  true  that  the  professors  of  our  colleges, 
and  generally  the  presidents  of  our  colleges  also, 
strike  one  and  the  same  chord  upon  the  matter  of 
tariff  "revision'';  and  throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  this  country,  the  same  people,  at  the 
same  intervals,  join  in  a  swelling  chorus  of  maledic- 
tions against  the  "robber  tariff"  and  say  that  "this 
protective  tariff  system  has  distorted  the  functions 
of  a  free  government  into  tools  of  greed  and  vehicles 
of  oppression,"  *  or  words  to  that  effect.  They  are 
souls  with  but  a  single  thought  and  hearts  that  beat 
as  one.  And  yet,  your  Honors,  there  is  no  outward 
and  visible  sign  of  any  connection  at  all  between 
all  these  different  kinds  of  people  who  detest 
American  Production.  But  we  account  easily  for 
the  choral  nature  of  their  attack  by  the  fact  that 
from  time  immemorial,  there  have  been  among  us 
people  who  have  not  thought  themselves  directly 
benefited  b3'  American  Production,  as  well  as  peo- 
ple, notably  members  of  the  Importing  Trust,  who 
have  felt  themselves  directly  aggrieved  by  American 
Production,  for  the  reason  that  the  greater  the  vol- 
ume of  the  latter's  output  the  smaller  their  chance 
to  peddle  foreign  goods  in  this  market.  And,  your 
Honors,  these  people  have  arrived  at  a  telharmon- 
ical  coincidence  of  emotion  upon  this  subject.  They 
have  so  long  sung  in  the  same  choir,  that,  if  any 
member  of  the  choir  so  much  as  hums  a  measure  of 
their  old  anthem,  the  entire  host  raises  its  voice  in 
unison  in  one  prolonged  scream  against  the  "trusts" 
that  "screw  up  prices  at  home  even  when  they  screw 
them  down  abroad,"  and  from  that  moment  until 
the  tariff-dike  has  been  wrecked  and  the  wily  plain- 

*  Governor  Folk. 


374 

tiff,  the  Importing  Trust,  has  carried  away  the  last 
cent  of  the  Amercian  savings  bank  fund,  sometimes 
still  in  chorus,  sometimes  in  sonorous  antiphonal, 
but  always  with  sevenfold  hellish  din,  the  goods 
and  chattels  of  these  wily  plaintiffs  continue  to 
damn  the  dike.  Why,  your  Honors,  it  is  surprising 
how  few  in  numbers,  compared  with  our  whole 
people,  these  creatures  of  the  Importing  and  Ex- 
porting Trusts  are !  And  yet  their  concerted  shriek 
sets  the  whole  country  pell  mell  for  the  exit.  It  is 
like  the  cry  of  "Fire" !  by  one  little  cup-full  of  wits 
in  a  crowded  theatre.  Bless  your  hearts!  there  is 
no  fire,  but  merely  a  glint  of  calcium  light  on  the 
curtain,  which  the  jay  is  unaccustomed  to;  but  it 
does  the  job;  one  group  of  sickly  yellow  brain-cells 
jumbles  five  hundred  blood-red  ones  and  a  hundred 
people  crushed  to  death  is  the  harvest.  And  it  is1  the 
same  with  these  sordid  mischief-makers,  the  wily 
plaintiffs  herein;  only  they  hire  the  jay  to  holler 
"Fire!"  and  then  pick  the  pockets  of  the  stamped- 
ing crowd  and  even  of  those  slain  in  the  crush. 

Your  Honors,  would  it  be  possible  for  there  to  be 
such  a  thing  as  a  tacit  conspiracy;  a  sort  of  con- 
certed action  which  took  place  from  a  species  of 
thought-transference?  It  seems  to  us  that  such  a 
thing  is  possible;  nay,  your  Honors,  such  a  thing 
has  happened;  either  a  tacit  conspiracy  or  a  trans- 
action which  might  be  called  by  an  uglier  word. 
For,  your  Honors,  these  wily  plaintiffs  have  ubi- 
quitous power.  It  bobs  up  everywhere.  And  there 
seems  to  be  such  an  affinity  in  graft  that  one  touch 
of  graft-emotion  makes  a  whole  political  world  kin. 

So  we  have  long  been  pained  to  think,  your 
Honors,  that  somehow,  by  a  sort  of  tacit  conspir- 
acy, these  wily  plaintiffs  have  possession  at  this 
moment  of  the  National  Government;  and  that  the 


375 

present  inmate  of  the  White  House  was  placed 
there  by  them  and  its  press  bureau.  At  any  rate, 
Mr.  Roosevelt  seems  to  be  suffering  from  a  sort  of 
conspiracy  obsession,  as  if,  himself  the  product  of  a 
conspiracy — a  tacit  conspiracy,  your  Honors — 
knowing  his  own  origin  as  a  White  House  incum- 
bent, the  spirit  of  conspiracy  haunted  him  like 
Banquo's  ghost.  For  you  will  remember,  your  Hon- 
ors, how  quickly  he  scented  out  the  conspiracy  of 
rich  men,  with  their  $5,000,000  pool  to  beat  him  and 
"my  policies,"  when  Mr.  Harrinian's  genius — good 
or  evil,  your  Honors? — published  the  "practical" 
letter  from  Mr.  Roosevelt  to  this  "malefactor  of 
great  wealth,"  asking  for  assistance  to  secure  the 
vote  of  New  York  State,  and  that  too  almost  the 
night  before  election  day,  when  money  could  find 
but  one  use  to  help  the  Republican  candidate.  Then 
you  will  remember  how,  in  his  Provincetown  speech 
on  August  20,  1907,  he  seemed  to  be  haunted  with 
]>anquo's  conspiracy-ghost  again,  for  he  said: 


"On  the  New  York  Stock  Exchange  the  disturbance 
has  been  particularly  severe,  most  of  it  I  believe  to  be 
due  to  matters  not  particularly  confined  to  the  United 
States,  and  to  matters  wholly  unconnected  with  any 
governmental  action,  BUT  IT  MAY  WELL  BE  THAT 
THE  DETERMINATION  OF  THE  GOVERNMENT,  IN 
WHICH,  GENTLEMEN,  IT  WILL  NOT  WAVER.  TO 
PUNISH  CERTAIN  MALEFACTORS  OF  GREAT 
WEALTH,  HAS  BEEN  RESPONSIBLE  FOR  SOME- 
THING OF  THE  TROUBLES,  AT  LEAST  TO  THE 
EXTENT  OF  HAVING  CAUSED  THESE  MEN  TO  COM- 
BINE TO  BRING  ABOUT  AS  MUCH  FINANCIAL 
STRESS  AS  THEY  POSSIBLY  CAN  IN  ORDER  TO 
DISCREDIT  THE  POLICY  OF  THE  GOVERNMENT 
AND  THEREBY  SECURE  A  REVERSAL  OF  THAT 
POLICY  SO  THAT  THEY  MAY  ENJOY  THE  FRUITS 
OF  THEIR  OWN  EVIL  DOING. 

"That  they  have  misled  many  good  people  into  be- 
lieving that  there  should  be  such  reversal  of  policy,  is 
possible.  If  so,  I  am  sorry,  but  it  will  not  alter  my  atti- 
tude. Once  for  all,  let  me  say  that,  as  far  as  I  am  con- 
cerned, and  for  the  eighteen  months  of  my  administration 
that  remain,  there  will  be  no  change  in  the  policy  we 
have  steadily  pursued." 


376 

Your  Honors,  don't  the  Good  Book  say  some- 
where, "He  who  accuses  another  of  conspiracy,  un- 
less he  prove  the  same,  shall  himself  be  accused  of 
conspiracy?"  We  think  it  does,  or  words  to  that 
effect;  but  at  any  rate,  there  is  an  old-fashioned 
saying  somewhere  something  like  this,  "It  takes  a 
rogue  to  catch  a  rogue." 

Now,  your  Honors,  we  are  not  going  to  accuse 
any  one  of  conspiracy,  lest  we  come  under  the 
stress  of  the  passage  from  the  Good  Book  just  re- 
ferred to;  but  we  wish  to  call  particular  attention 
to  the  fact  that  Mr.  Roosevelt,  ever  since  he  became 
President  with  a  free  hand,  has  been  doing  exactly 
what  these  wily  plaintiffs,  or  either  of  them,  would 
have  done  itself  if  President  of  the  United  States, 
viz.,  he  has  been  using  every  means,  fair  or  foul, 
to  discredit  and  destroy  American  Production,  our 
client,  for  the  express  benefit  of  these  wily  plain- 
tiffs, the  misappropriation  of  the  American  savings 
bank  fund  by  the  Importing  Trust,  and  the  conver- 
sion of  Congress  into  a  sort  of  directorate  of  Ameri- 
can manufacturers,  in  the  interest  of  the  Exporting 
Trust,  to  sacrifice  our  producers  of  s'o-called  "raw 
materials"  to  the  increased  profit  of  said  wily  plain- 
tiff in  its  export  trade 

It  looks  to  us,  your  Honors,  also,  as  if  Mr.  Roose- 
velt, in  saying,  "Once  for  all,  let  me  say  that,  as  far 
as  I  am  concerned,  and  for  the  eighteen  months  of 
my  administration  that  remain,  there  will  be  no 
change  in  the  policy  wre  have  steadily  pursued," 
merely  passed  the  word  to  these  wily  plaintiffs  that 
they  might  pursue  their  own  "policy"  of  scream- 
ing down  the  "trusts"  with  the  perfect  assurance 
that  he  would  do  his  part  and  continue  to  discredit 
our  client,  American  Production,  to  the  limit. 


377 

It  also  looks  to  us,  your  Honors,  as  if  these  wily 
plaintiffs  were  at  the  bottom  of  the  wild  insistence 
with  which  Mr.  Roosevelt  was  nominated  to  the 
vice-presidency  in  1900  on  the  McKinley  ticket; 
and  that  the  press-agency  of  these  wily  plaintiffs 
was  at  the  bottom  of  the  wide  advertisement  of  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  trust-busting  virtues  which  led  to  his 
re-election,  to  the  profound  grief  of  American  Pro- 
duction, in  1904.  For  it  was  well  known  that  Mr. 
Roosevelt  was  the  open  enemy  of  American  Produc- 
tion, in  that  he  was  a  graduate  of  a  notorious  Free 
Trade  College  and  a  member  of  the  celebrated  Cob- 
den  Club,  and  that  he  looked  upon  "protection" 
merely  with  the  tolerant  eye  of  the  temporizing  poli- 
tician, as  shown  by  the  following  extract  from  page 
67  of  his  life  of  Benton : 

"Free  traders  are  apt  to  look  at  the  tariff  from  a 
sentimental  standpoint,  "but  it  is  in  reality  purely  a  busi- 
ness matter,  and  should  be  decided  solely  on  grounds  of 
expediency.  Political  economists  have  pretty  generally 
agreed  that  protection  is  vicious  in  theory  and  harmful 
in  practice;  but  if  the  majority  of  the  people  in  interest 
wish  it,  and  it  affects  only  themselves,  there  is  no  earthly 
reason  why  they  should  not  be  allowed  to  try  the  experi- 
ment to  their  heart's  content." 

It  is  evident  from  this  quotation  that  Mr.  Roose- 
velt never  had  any  convictions  on  the  protection 
issue  which  would  have  seemed  to  these  wily  plain- 
tiffs objectionable  in  their  representative  at  the 
head  of  the  Government.  Mr.  Roosevelt,  in  fact,  has 
strong  convictions  adverse  to  our  client,  American 
Production.  Ever  since  his  independent  attach- 
ment to  the  presidential  hitching  post  he  has  been 
champing  the  bit  to  be  freed  from  the  bridle  of  pro- 
lection.  On  this  point,  we  quote  Mr  George  Gris1- 
wold  Hill  in  the  August  number,  1907,  of  the  North 
American  Review,  in  an  article  evidently  inspired 
bv  Mr.  Roosevelt  himself: 


378 

"No  feature  of  the  President's  policies  is  more  widely 
misunderstood  than  his  attitude  on  the  tariff.  He  has 
long  believed  that  the  time  has  arrived  when  revision  of 
the  Dingley  tariff  act  is  advisable.  True,  there  have 
been  evils  which  he  has  regarded  as  of  paramount  im- 
portance— as,  for  instance,  the  granting  of  railway  re- 
bates, overcapitalization,  etc.;  but  on  a  number  of  occa- 
sions he  has  summoned  the  leaders  of  his  party  and  sought 
to  impress  on  them  the  advisability  of  tariff  readjust- 
ment, only  to  learn  that  the  determined  opposition  of 
Speaker  Cannon  and  his  associates  in  the  Horse  consti- 
tuted an  insuperable  obstacle.  On  one  occasion,  in  his 
annual  message  of  1904,  he  went  so  far  as  to  give  notice 
of  a  special  message  in  which  he  would  urge  tariff  re- 
vision. He  wrote,  'On  the  subject  of  the  tariff  I  will  ad- 
dress you  later.'  But  the  earnest  representations  of  the 
leaders  of  his  party  that  tariff  revision  would  be  impos- 
sible at  a  short  session  and  that  notice  given  so  far  in 
advance  of  a  special  session  to  be  called  for  this  purpose 
would  seriously  unsettle  business  led  him  to  order  the 
line  quoted  to  be  stricken  from  the  message  after  the 
advance  copies  had  been  furnished  to  the  press.  In  Janu- 
ary, 1905,  he  secured  the  assent  of  the  Senate  leaders,  not 
excluding  Senator  Aldrich,  who  has  long  been  known  as 
'the  high-priest  of  protection,'  to  a  special  session  for 
tariff  revision  to  be  called  soon  after  March  4th;  but  the 
continued  opposition  of  the  Speaker  and  a  few  other 
leaders  of  the  House  demonstrated  the  futility  of  such 
a  course.  Mr.  Roosevelt  is  now  of  the  opinion  that  ?.t 
would  be  unwise  to  attempt  tariff  revision  in  the  coming 
Congress,  but  he  will  exert  his  influence  to  commit  irre- 
vocably the  Republican  party,  in  its  next  national  plat- 
form, to  the  programme  of  summoning  Congress  in  special 
session  to  revise  the  tariff,  immediately  after  March  4th, 
1909." 

We  exclaim  in  passing,  with  deep  reverence  and 
thankfulness,  "God  bles's  that  iron- willed  Speaker 
for  so  staunchly  standing  between  his  country  and 
the  deluge  of  Rooseveltian  ignorance!"  Please 
mark,  your  Honors,  we  did  not  say  "Rooseveltian 
servility  to  the  Importing  Trust." 

We  also  remark  in  passing  that,  if  the  Repub- 
lican party  follows  Mr.  Roosevelt  in  framing  its 
platform  in  1908,  it  will  "march  through  a  slaugh- 
ter house  to  an  open  grave,"  and  it  will  richly  de- 
serve its  fate. 

We  think  we  have  shown  Mr.  Roosevelt's  entire 
harmony  with  these  wily  plaintiffs  in  their  purpose 


379 

of  destroying  the  tariff-dike  and  raping  our  sav- 
ings-bank fund. 

But  again  we  protest  that  we  do  not  say  that 
there  is  even  a  tacit  conspiracy  between  Mr.  Roose- 
velt and  'these  wily  plaintiffs.  We  only  say  that  if 
these  wily  plaintiffs  had  raked  the  world  over  for 
a  bettor  instrument  for  their  purposes',  they  could 
not  have  found  one.  Mark,  your  Honors,  the  va- 
rious things  that  followed  Mr.  Roosevelt's  elevation 
to  the  presidency,  in  as  rapid  succession  as  the  slow 
procession  of  national  events  would  permit: 

1.  Mr.  Roosevelt  dismissed  as  a  "disturber"  Hon. 
Wilbur  F.  Wakeinan  from  the  General  Appraiser- 
ship  at  the  port  of  New  York,  where  this  gentleman 
"stood  like  a  stone  wall"  between  the  wage-pro- 
ducers of  this  country  and  the  flood  of  foreign  sur- 
plus products  which    undervaluation  would    have 
invited  over  our  tariff-dike.     This  dismissal  was  at 
the  express  instance  of  the  New  York  wing  of  the 
Importing  Trust  and  certain  Republican  politicians 
to  whose  campaign    contributions   the    Importing 
Trust  had  been  wont  to  contribute.     In  addition  to 
the  removal  of  Mr.  Wakeman,  as  a  "disturber"  of 
the  quiet  in  which  the  Importing  Trust  otherwise 
would  have  been  permitted  to  filch  the  savings  of 
the  wage-producers  of  this  country,  various  equally 
watchful  and  faithful  officials  were  transferred  by 
Mr.  Roosevelt's  order  to  remote  parts  of  the  coun- 
try, where   they   could   not  longer  "disturb"  New 
York    importers.     Please   note,  your  Honors,  that 
these  were  acts  directly  hostile  to  our  client,  Ameri- 
can Production. 

2.  As  soon  as  possible  after  his  coming  to  the 
presidency,  Mr.  Roosevelt  forced  the  Cuban  Treaty 


380 

through  Congress  with  his  Big  Stick.  This  was  in 
direct  violation  of  the  Republican  Platform,  a  most 
treacherous  abandonment  of  the  policy  of  protec- 
tion, and  a  wanton  sacrifice  of  the  Western  Farm- 
ers, and,  generally,  an  act  of  "perfidy  and  dis- 
honor" unparalleled  in  American  politics.  It  was 
done  at  the  direct  behest  of  the  New  York  wing 
of  the  Importing  Trust,  to  the  infinite  damage  of 
our  client,  American  Production,  and  at  an  actual 
net  cash  loss  to  this  country  of  $66,000,000  last 
year,  with  the  figures  likely  to  double  in  the  next 
year  or  two.  This  was1  a  decisive  step  in  the  direc- 
tion of  free  trade  for  the  benefit  of  these  wily  plain- 
tiffs. So  far  from  responding  in  kind,  the  Cubans 
take  the  $66,000,000  in  cash  which  we  pay  in  the 
balance  against  us,  and  buy  goods'  of  Europe. 

3.  In  his  message  to  Congress  in  December,  1906, 
Mr.  Roosevelt  recommended  Free  Trade  with  the 
Philippine  Islands,  saying:  "Free  Trade  with  the 
Philippine  Islands  can  do  no  harm  to  any  American 
industry."     This  recommendation  was  made  at  the 
request  of  the  wily  plaintiff,  the  Importing  Trust, 
and  Mr.  Taft,  Mr.  Roosevelt's  proposed  lineal  suc- 
cessor to  the  presidential  office.     Free  Trade  with 
the  Philippines  would  be  for  us  Free  Trade  with 
the  whole  world  through  the  Philippine  Hole  in  the 
Wall. 

4.  Mr.  Roosevelt,  evidently  through  the  influence 
of  the  Importing  Trust,    surrounds    himself   with 
members  of  the  Importing  Trust.     His  Secretary  of 
State  is  Mr.  Root,  who  pus'hed  the  unsuspecting  Mc- 
Kinley  into  Free  Trade  with  Porto  Rico,  a  direct 
blow  to  our  client,  American  Production,  and  a  step 
which  one  day  will  be  responsible  for  the  starvation 


381 

of  many  an  American  wage-producer.  His  Secre- 
tary of  War  is  Mr.  Taft,  an  unmitigated  Free 
Trader,  as  proven  by  his  Columbus  speech,  in  which 
his  reasons  for  fervently  advocating  "tariff  revi- 
sion" were  none  other  than  reasons  for  Free  Trade. 
His  Secretary  of  Commerce  and  Labor  is  Mr.  Oscar 
S.  Straus,  a  New  York  importer  and  notorious  Free 
Trader,  who  is  entirely  out  of  sympathy  with 
our  client,  American  Production,  and  is1  committed 
Avithout  reservation  to  the  increase  of  American  im- 
ports through  a  cutting  down  of  the  tariff-dike. 
Aiid  Mr.  Roosevelt's  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  is 
Mr.  George  B.  Cortelyou,  a  Democrat,  and  a  nat- 
ural sympathizer  with  the  Importing  Trust. 

Your  Honors,  we  submit  that  these  members'  of 
the  Importing  Trust  were  not  assembled  by  chance 
in  the  Cabinet  of  a  Harvard  graduate,  a  member 
of  the  more  than  notorious  Free  Trade  Cobden 
Club  and  a  concocter  of  German  Agreements;  and 
we  do  not  think  that  their  presence  in  the  Cabinet 
is  reconcilable  with  the  Republican  Platform,  if 
the  deliverance  of  that  platform  on  the  subject  of 
protection  was  meant  for  anything  but  political 
buncombe ;  at  any  rate,  such  a  cabinet  is  not  recon- 
cilable with  the  good  faith  of  the  President  and  his 
intentions  witli  regard  to  our  client,  American  Pro- 
duction. 

5.  Mr.  Roosevelt  instigated,  approved  and  pro- 
mulgated the  German  Trade  Agreement,  which 
turns  over  to  the  Germans  the  power  to  fix  their 
own  tariffs  on  vast  volumes  of  goods  which  they 
send  into  this  country.  For  the  agreement  permits 
them  to  fix  an  "export"  price  by  simply  changing 
the  label  on  their  goods ;  and  the  "export"  price  so 
fixed  can  be  so  low  as  to  destroy  all  the  protection 


382 

in  the  Dingley  Law  for  the  makers  of  similar  goods 
here.  This  agreement  also  provides1  that  our  spe- 
cial treasury  agents  shall  be  certified  to  the  German 
Government.  This  means  that  they  are  acceptable 
or  rejectable  by  the  German  Government.  These 
special  agents  are  our  attorneys  or  representatives1 
in  guarding  our  interests  in  the  valuation  of  Ger- 
man exports  to  this  country.  To  give  the  German 
Government  the  power  to  accept  or  reject  these 
agents  is  the  same  as  to  give  a  criminal  at  the  bar 
the  power  of  selecting  his  own  judge  and  jury  from 
among  his  companions  in  the  crime  for  which  he  is 
to  be  tried.  For  in  any  contest  relative  to  exports 
to  this  country,  which  we  may  have  with  that  Gov- 
ernment, it  gives  the  German  Government  power  to 
{•.•elect  our  attorney  and  the  judge  who  sits  on  the 
case.  This  is  plainly  the  work  of  the  Importing 
Trust,  operating  through  its'  employe,  Mr.  Roose- 
velt. It  is  said  that  Mr.  Root  negotiated  this  agree- 
ment. If  he  did,  it  must  have  been  as  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  German  Government;  for  our  peo- 
ple seem  not  to  have  been  represented,  so  far  as  the 
interests  of  our  client,  American  Production,  are 
concerned. 

The  knitting  mills  of  Chemnitz,  Germany,  were 
for  many  years  the  deadly  antagonists  of  our  knit- 
ting mills  in  the  Mohawk  Valley,  and  the  Germans 
practiced  every  trick  by  which  to  cheat  our  tariff 
laws  and  destroy  our  knitting  factories.  At  last, 
we  believe  during  the  incumbency  of  the  General 
Appraisership  of  the  Port  of  New  York  by  Mr. 
Wakeman,  so  ignominiously  removed  by  Mr.  Roose- 
velt for  simply  doing  his  duty,  these  Chemnitz  peo- 
ple were  reduced  to  some  kind  of  order  and  onr 
knitting  mills  flonris'liecl  as  never  before.  We  wish 
to  inquire,  whether  or  not,  to  square  the  old  grudge 


383 

which  he  had  against  Mr.  AYakt'inau  aud  anything 
he  did  to  help  our  client,  American  Production,  Mr. 
Roosevelt  took  special  delight  in  leveling  our  knit- 
ting mills  by  the  German  Agreement?  We  ask  be- 
cause contemporaneously  with  the  appearance  of 
figures  showing  the  great  increase  of  our  imports 
from  German  knitting  mills  permitted  by  the  Ger- 
man Agreement,  we  read  the  following  in  the  New 
York  Globe  of  November  11,  1907 : 

"Amsterdam,  N.  Y.,  Nov.  11. — The  knitting  mills  of  A. 
B.  Morris  &  Son,  Yunds,  Kennedy  &  Yunds,  and  Gradner, 
Waring  &  Co.,  employing  about  forty-five  hundred  hands, 
have  closed  down.  Salesmen  on  the  road  have  been  un- 
able to  make  a  sale  for  four  weeks.  It  is  feared  that 
many  other  knitting  mills  in  the  Mohawk  Valley  will 
have  to  shut  down." 

This  is  a  result  which  was  prophesied  by  intelli- 
gent people  the  moment  the  terms  of  the  German 
Agreement  were  made  known.  And  this  is  but  the 
beginning  of  the  deadly  work  which  either  the 
ignorance  or  something  worse  of  the  most  reckless1 
and  ruthless  Chief  Executive  with  which  the  Ameri- 
can people  were  ever  afflicted  executed  in  the  dead 
of  a  dark-lantern  night. 

Ever  since  Mr.  Koosevelt's  coming  to  full  power, 
under  cover  of  attacking  the  railroads  and  the 
"trusts,"  he  has1  waged  relentless  war  on  American 
Production.  In  doing  this  work  of  destruction,  no 
theory  can  account  for  the  venom  which  he  has 
shown  against  American  Production,  except  one 
which  points  to  the  Importing  Trust  as  the  moving 
influence. 

Your  Honors,  we  repeat  once  more  and  protest 
that  we  do  not  charge  Mr.  Roosevelt  with  conspir- 
ing directly  with  the  wily  plaintiffs,  in  the  first 
place,  to  secure  his  nomination  on  the  Republican 


384 

in  1900;  in  the  second  place,  to  secure  his 
renomination  and  election  in  1904 ;  and,  in  the  third 
place,  to  secure  the  election  in  his  own  place  and 
stead,  in  1908,  of  Mr.  Taft,  his  friend  and  fellow 
laborer  for  the  destruction  of  our  client,  American 
Production ;  and  we  do  not  say  that  Mr.  Roosevelt 
is  anxious  to  have  his  bosom  friend  made  President 
in  order  that  he  himself  through  his1  presidential 
appointee,  may  still  retain  a  hold  on  Federal  pat- 
ronage and  Federal  favor  in  the  State  of  NewT  York, 
large  enough  to  force  his  own  election  as  a  Senator 
from  New  York  to  the  National  Congress;  and  we 
reiterate  that  we  make  no  charge  of  this  kind;  but 
we  also  reiterate  that  if  Mr.  Roosevelt  had  been 
hired  by  the  New  York  Importing  Trust  to  do  exact- 
ly what  the  Importing  Trust  wanted  him  to  do,  in 
doing  all  the  matters  and  things  we  have  enumer- 
ated, he  certainly  would  have  earned  his  money, 
and,  in  case  of  a  dispute  on  that  point,  a  fair  jury 
would  give  him  judgment.  But,  your  Honors,  why 
should  we  expect  a  different  record  from  this  on  the 
part  of  Mr.  Roosevelt? 

An  inspection  of  his  brain-cells  does  not  justify 
a  different  expectation.  For  those  cells  in  the 
region  of  sympathy  are  scanty  and  weak ;  and  this 
is  proven  by  his  passion  for  shedding  the  innocent 
blood  of  his  four-footed  brothers  and  his  careless- 
ness of  the  consequences  to  the  lives  of  his  victims 
following  such  action  as  he  took  in  the  Tyner  mat- 
ter, the  Brownsville  matter,  the  Long  matter,  and 
the  matters  of  the  dismissed  coachman  and  the  sus- 
pended pilot  Nicholls.  In  this  respect  Mr.  Roose- 
velt is  very  much  of  a  savage. 

Again,  his  brain-cells  which  have  to  do  with  op- 
position, with  fighting,  and  violent  action,  are  very 
fat  and  healthy  and  are  innocent  of  race-suicide. 


385 

Considering  the  weakness  of  bis  sympathy  brain- 
cells,  the  strength  of  those  last  described  make 
Mr.  Koosevelt  a  man  rather  liking  the  sight  of  blood 
than  otherwise.  He  likes  to  shoot;  and  when  he 
shoots,  he  shoots  to  kill;  whether  he  is  potting 
bears  in  Louisiana  or  "trusts,"  otherwise  American 
Production,  in  Washington. 

Furthermore,  the  brain-cells  that  should  compel 
prudence,  discretion,  deliberate  and  well-thought 
action  are  also  weak;  and  this  accounts  for  his 
headlong  manner  in  employing  the  telegraph  to  dis- 
miss a  Mississippi  pilot,  without  judge  or  jury,  and 
against  the  testimony  of  expert  eye-witnesses  that 
the  deposed  pilot  was  altogether  blameless.  Mr. 
Roosevelt  supposed  the  poor  fellow  to  have  ap- 
proached his  own  boat  too  irreverently,  that  was  all. 
In  this  Mr.  Koosevelt  is  a  good  deal  of  a  Kaiser. 
He  forgets  there  are  courts  and  orderly  processes 
to  punish  real  offenders.  He  rolls  up  his  sleeves 
and  dips  into  the  bloody  job  himself;  as  he  did  on 
Kettle  Hill,  when  he  threatened  himself  to  shoot 
any  fellow  that  ran  away  from  the  enemy,  although 
none  of  those  soldier  boys  had  any  more  idea  of 
running  away  than  he  had. 

And  this  suggests  another  group  of  brain-cells 
belonging  to  Mr.  Roosevelt,  which  are  very  robust; 
and  that  is  the  group  that,  when  large,  causes  vain- 
gloriou&ness,  a  longing  for  the  lime-light;  an  indul- 
gence in  swagger  and  bluster  and  a  general  aspira- 
tion to  be  the  whole  show.  And  this  group,  so 
large,  round  and  rosy  in  Mr.  Roosevelt,  will  not  let 
him  decline  a  third  term.  Nay,  it  is  causing  him 
this  minute  to  listen  to  the  entreaties  of  these  wily 
plaintiffs  to  carry  out  the  good  work  he  has  so 
well  begun  in  their  behalf,  still  keep  his  grip  on  the 
Republican  press-agency,  through  which  he  has 


386 

filled  the  country  with  a  fictitious  echo  for  tariff 
"revision,"  and  himself  conduct  the  "revision" 
which  the  inspired  article  of  his  in  the  North 
American  Review  says  he  is  and  has  been  so  anxious 
to  effect.  For,  your  Honors,  we  verily  believe  that 
Mr.  Eoosevelt  himself,  in  the  service  of  these  wily 
plaintiffs,  the  Importing  Trust  and  the  Exporting 
Trust,  and  through  his  "cuckoo"  press,  is  at  the 
very  root  of  all  the  whispering  we  hear  with  regard 
to  the  country's  desire  for  "tariff  revision."  We 
believe  this  sentiment  is  altogether  fictitious,  man- 
ufactured by  Mr.  Roosevelt,  through  his  servile 
press  agency,  in  obedience  to  these  wily  plaintiffs. 
And  we  believe,  also,  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  is  himself 
the  real  utterer  of  the  "tariff-revision"  sentiments 
given  air  to  by  Mr.  Taft  at  Columbus;  and  we  be- 
lieve that  Mr.  Taft  is  really  Mr.  Roosevelt  in  dis- 
guise.* 

We  believe  that  Mr.  Taft  is  Mr.  Roosevelt's  stalk- 
ing horse  for  the  presidential  nomination,  and  that 
it  was  through  Mr.  Taft  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  wanted 
to  "smoke  out"  the  country  as  to  the  state  of  its 
mind  on  "tariff  revision,"  the  same  as  Mr.  Dickin- 
son, ex-member  of  White  House  "Cuckoos,"  said 
Mr.  Roosevelt,  by  himself  starting  the  Taft  boom  in 
Washington,  "smoked  out"  the  opposition  to  Mr. 
Taft.  If  having  sprung  the  trap  with  Mr.  Taft's 
speech  at  Columbus  for  a  bait  he  finds  the  public 


*  "In  the  judgment  of  men,  of  whom  I  am  one  there  was  a 
mistake  in  that  change.  In  the  light  of  history,  I  think  it 
would  have  been  better  to  have  left  the  Presidential  term  of 
seven  years  with  an  accompanying  ineligibility.  [Applause.] 
If  that  were  the  provision  we  should  not  now  have  the  spec- 
tacle of  our  strenuous  President  playing  a  game  of  hide  and 
seek  with  the  American  people."  [Laughter.] 

Mr.  Justice  David  J.  Brewer,  of  the  Supreme  court  of  the 
United  States,  speaking  before  the  Civic  Forum  at  Carnegie 
Hall,  New  York  City,  Wednesday,  Nov.  20,  1907,  as  reported 
in  the  N.  f.  Sun. 


387 

indulgent  towards  "tariff  revision/'  Mr.  Roosevelt 
purposes  to  work  the  Republican  Convention  so  it 
will  stand  on  its  hind  legs  and  howl  for  him;  then 
his  friend  Taft,  with  a  deep  salaam,  will  gracefully 
and  graciously  withdraw  in  favor  of  his  chief,  Mr. 
Roosevelt,  and  Mr.  Roosevelt  will  be  nominated  by 
acclamation,  and  the  leaders  of  the  Republican 
party  will  complete  their  performance  of  acting 
like  little  wooden  monkeys  running  up  and  down 
little  wooden  rods  in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Roosevelt,  in 
which  phase  they  have  been  figuring  for  the  last  five 
or  six  years.  All  this  will  have  been  cut  and  dried 
before  hand,  and  then  Mr.  Roosevelt  will  shy  his 
castor  into  the  ring  and  rush  in  as  the  champion  of 
tariff  "revision'' — all  as  these  wily  plaintiffs  have 
planned  and  conspired  for,  lo,  these  many  long 
moons. 

And  this  brings  us  to  another  group  of  brain- 
cells,  also  large,  round  and  rosy,  which  gives  Mr. 
Roosevelt  the  ability  to  contrive  mi-ses  en  scene, 
nominations  by  acclamation,  ovations  from  the  pop- 
ulace and  all  the  other  fixings  necessary  to  a  success- 
ful demagogue's  career;  the  same  group  which  led 
him  to  rig  Mr.  Fairbanks  with  the  "cocktail" 
episode,  which  made  the  papers  contrast  the  water- 
wagon  Roosevelt  with  the  sinful  cocktail  Fairbanks 
and  report  how  the  Water- Wagon  in  the  Louisiana 
swamps,  pot-shooting  bear,  "carried  a  noon  lunch 
and  a  bottle  of  water"!  This  invaluable  group  of 
brain-cells,  your  Honors,  invaluable  above  all  to 
those  who  hope  to  fool  all  the  people  some  of  the 
time,  is  known  in  Phrenology  as  "secretiveness,"  an 
indispensable  piece  of  head-furniture  for  gods  and 
men,  pickpockets  and  "Presidents  who  pull  wires  for 
third  terms.  Put  this  robust  group  with  that  which 
makes  for  vaiu-gloriousness  and  von  have  a  combi- 


388 

nation  that  is  bound  to  fool  a  lot  of  innocent  people 
all  the  time. 

There  is  another  group  of  brain-cells,  your  Hon- 
ors, which  is  weak,  yellow,  and  puling  in  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  head-pantry — that  is  "weak"  only  in 
comparison  with  the  mightiness  of  his  ambition,  his 
war-thirstiness,  and  his  secretiveness — and  that  is 
the  group  that  if  large  would  make  him  a  philoso- 
pher. That  group  is  the  one  which  gives  people 
an  intuition  of  the  relation  of  cause  to  effect.  This 
deficiency  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Koosevelt's  head-fur- 
niture, is  a  perfect  godsend  to  his  friends,  these 
tvily  plaintiffs;  because  Mr.  Koosevelt  can  carry 
on  his  war  against  our  client,  American  Produc- 
tion, and  not  see  very  clearly  what  others  see,  and 
that  is  that  he  is  making  people  wonder  if  his  think- 
ers don't  need  oiling.  It  makes  him  a  zealous 
servant  of  these  wily  plaintiffs  without  quite  real- 
izing what  a  holy  show  he  is  making  of  himself  to 
people  who  have  no  bats  in  their  belfry. 

We  know,  your  Honors,  that  this  country  is  full 
of  simple-hearted  people  who  don't  know  gold 
bricks  when  all  the  gold  is  scraped  off  and  the  red 
shows  through;  and  we  know  that  these  good  folks 
would  never  believe  that  they  had  only  been  fooled 
by  a  presidential  press-agency  into  the  silly  no- 
tion that  Mr.  Roosevelt  is  not  the  humble  servant 
of  these  wily  plaintiffs;  and  they  would  never  be- 
ileve  that  to  trust  in  him  and  follow  him  up  hill 
and  down  dale  would  be  to  dig  a  great  pit  for  the 
country's  prosperity;  to  assure  a  greater  or  less 
destruction  of  our  faithful  tariff-dike,  and  so  a 
greater  or  less  destruction  of  the  lives  of  our  wage- 
produeers.  But  Mr.  Koosevelt's  lack  of  natural 
sympathy,  the  mood  and  make  which  stand  behind 
his  thirst  for  the  chase  and  its  bloody  goal,  make 


389 

him  sceptical  as  to  the  suffering  which  his  fooling 
with  the  tariff-dike  is  sure  to  cause.  We  know  that 
our  hero- worshippers,  with  their  adoration  fanned 
to  flame  by  a  press-agency  with  Mr.  Roosevelt  him- 
self working  the  bellows,  will  not  listen  to  our  hint 
that  there  is  more  than  a  platonic  friendship  be- 
tween their  President  and  these  wily  plaintiffs ;  but 
whether  or  not  he  has  such  a  friendship  for  these 
wily  plaintiffs,  he  has  never  shown  the  least  sus- 
picion of  friendship  for  our  client,  American  Pro- 
duction. 

But,  we  ask  again,  why  should  he  have  any  sym- 
pathy with  American  Production?  He  does  not 
know  what  it  is  to  be  compelled  to  produce  or 
die.  He  wras  born  with  an  independent  fortune  and 
has  never  needed  to  earn  nor  has  he  ever  in  his  life, 
earned  a  dollar,  honest  or  dishonest,  except  as  a 
politician.  He  has  landed  in  various  offices  as  the 
result  of  strenuous  politics ;  but  he  has  never  "need- 
ed the  money."  He  does  not  know  what  it  is  to 
have  his  factory  closed  by  the  jabbing  of  a  hole  in 
our  anti-deluge  tariff-dike,  while  his  job  "folded  its 
tents  like  the  Arabs,  and  as  silently  stole  away,"  to 
the  music  of  a  houseful  of  children  crying  with 
hunger  and  cold  and  the  sigh  of  a  haggard  and 
hunger-haunted  wife  into  whose  lap  he  could  no 
longer  toss  his  week's  wages.  Not  having  known 
these  things  and  not  being  of  a  sympathetic  nature, 
but  rather  of  a  nature  that  loves  to  hunt  wild  ani- 
mals, themselves  the  heads  of  families  and  also 
earning  their  daily  bread,  and  cut  them  down  with 
bullets  from  magazine  rifles  and  stain  the  sad  earth 
with  their  innocent  blood,  how  could  he  be  expected 
to  sympathize  with  men  out  of  work  or  to  take  any 
other  view  than  the  one  he  does  take,  viz.,  that  the 
tariff-dike  is  merely  a  political  plaything  to  be 


390 

tossed  about  as  the  interests  of  politics  may  re- 
quire? 

With  such  an  origin,  Mr.  Koosevelt's  natural 
sympathies  are  all  with  the  pomp  and  pageantry 
and  consequence  of  wealth  and  power.  He  has  a 
notion  that  he  was  born  to  rule  and  that  the  king 
can  do  no  wrong;  for  his  course  in  the  presidency 
has  shown  that  he  thinks  that  what  he  does  is  right 
for  the  reason  that  he  does  it.  He  has  the  impa- 
tience under  opposition  that  comes  from  the  con- 
sciousness of  his  aristocratic  antecedents.  And  yet, 
his  servility  to  a  flattering  tongue,  as,  for  instance, 
Baron  Von  Stern  burg's,  shows  a  desire  to  accord 
with  those  who  praise  him  that  betrays  the  sprink- 
ling of  plebeian  blood  with  which  his  veins  are 
unhappily  disgraced.  Impetuous,  praise-loving,  im- 
pulsive, his  foresight  often  misses  the  target  while 
his  hindsight  seldom  makes  a  bull's  eye.  His  con- 
stant longing  is  for  popular  clatter  and  applause 
and  his  constant  act  is  climbing  to  the  platform 
and  parading  himself  in  the  lime-light.  He  is  not 
gifted  with  wisdom,  but  longing  much  for  at  lou<t 
its  appearance,  he  studies  phrase-making  and  the 
art  of  charming  the  vulgar  ear  with  brave  senten- 
ces; therefore  his  speeches  are  but  a  string  of  cheap 
and  easy  platitudes  such  as  school-boys  early  com- 
mit to  memory  from  their  copy-books.  He  would 
have  the  public  think  that  he  had  a  monopoly  of 
the  "square  deal"  pipe-line  and  that  we  were  all  at 
the  mercy  of  his  turning  the  cock  on  or  oft'.  He 
does  not  seem  to  remember  that  the  courts  are  with 
us  to  enforce  a  "square  deal''  and  that  that  is  the 
sole  business  of  our  judicial  system.  In  fact,  ho 
seems  never  to  realize  the  existence  of  the  courts 
at  all  except  when  they  restrain  him  in  some  over- 
strenuous  act,  and  then  his  only  remark  on  the 


391 

situation  is  to  express  the  hope  that  he  can  bring 
the  courts  around  to  his  way  of  thinking;  or  to 
hint  that  future  courts  may  be  constituted  so  as 
to  coincide  with  him — gently  and  with  an  ivory 
hedged  smile  laying  his  hand  on  the  sheath  of  his 
Big  Stick  the  while. 

The  qualities  stimulated  by  the  hunt  and  by  his 
strenuous  life  in  controlling  primaries  are  seen  in 
his  public  acts.  He  leaps  with  steel-shod  feet  on 
the  slim  young  body  of  the  Spanish  King;  but 
salaams  politely  before  the  erect  and  irate  Mikado. 
He  cannot  leave  to  the  courts  the  guilt  or  innocence 
of  a  Tyner;  to  the  courts-martial  the  trial  of  an 
alleged  mutiny  of  colored  troops;  to  the  discrimin- 
ating public  the  decision  as  to  the  story-writing 
merits  of  a  Long  or  to  the  proper  board  of  inquiry 
the  fault  of  a  pilot  Nicholls,  but  in  noble  fury,  leap- 
ing single-handed  to  the  centre  of  the  stage  he  man- 
fully tries,  condemns,  sentences  and  executes  every- 
body, holding  it  far  better  that  ninety-nine  inno- 
cent men  should  suffer  than  that  a  single  guilty  one 
should  escape. 

Your  Honors,  Mr.  Roosevelt  has  a  capacity  for 
serious  mischief  which,  if  he  be  not  restrained  by  a 
regenerated  public  sentiment,  may  lead  him  to  do 
as  malevolent  things  to  destroy  our  entire  tariff- 
dike  as  he  did  to  damage  it  with  the  Cuban  Treaty. 
The  capacity  we  refer  to  is  that  which  makes  him 
prostitute  constitutional  power  given  him  for  a 
public  purpose  to  the  forcing  of  reluctant  legisla- 
tors to  do  his  will  for  a  private  object.  You  may 
remember,  your  Honors,  the  circumstances  under 
which  Mr.  Roosevelt,  right  against  the  will  and 
purpose  of  the  Republican  majority  in  Congress, 
succeeded  in  forcing  through  that  body  the  Cuban 
Reciprocity  Treaty,  with  all  its  frightful  damage 


392 

to  our  own  solid  industrial  development.  You  may 
remember  the  current  report  at  that  time,  which 
was  to  the  effect  that,  failing  of  the  requisite  num- 
ber of  votes  to  get  the  measure  through  the  House, 
Mr.  Koosevelt  sent  for  one  after  another  of  the 
balking  members  and  used  his  own  personal  per- 
suasion to  secure  votes  for  the  Treaty.  He  kept 
this  up  assiduously  until  he  had  "seen"  nearly  the 
whole  list  of  recalcitrants.  Meantime  his  press 
agency  was  set  furiously  at  work  flagellating  the 
"insurgents,"  as  they  were  ignomiiiiously  called, 
and  pillorying  their  "selfishness"  in  setting  the  in- 
terests of  their  own  little  congressional  beet-sugar 
districts  over  the  "starving  Cubans" — otherwise 
the  Newr  York  Sugar  Refining  Company,  your  Hon- 
ors— and  their  want  of  patriotism  in  not  follow- 
ing the  great  and  good  patriot  in  the  White  House. 
These  .poor  Congressmen  knew  that  to  pass  this 
Treaty  was  merely  to  pass  a  bag  of  money  out  of 
the  pockets  of  their  constituents  and  the  United 
States  Treasury  into  the  pocket  of  the  Importing 
Trust.  And  yet,  one  after  another,  after  Mr.  Roose- 
velt had  "seen"  them,  they  fell  in  line  and  the 
Treaty  finally  went  through  by  a  good  majority. 
Y"our  Honors,  what  did  Mr.  Roosevelt  say  to  these 
recalcitrant  Congressmen,  whom  he  thus  put 
through  the  third  degree?  He  got  their  votes,  but 
how?  Not  by  logic,  your  Honors.  Not  by  convinc- 
ing those  keen  men  that  he  was  right  and  they  were 
wrong.  They  were  eternally  right  and  they  knew 
it.  He  was  eternally  wrong  and  his  conscience,  if 
he  had  any,  knew  that  too.  He  was  smaller  in  men- 
tal girth  than  they.  He  was  and  is  and  always  will 
be  weak  in  his  causal  brain-cells;  and  he  was 
younger  than  they.  They  were  keen  reasoners, 
backed  by  their  absolute  knowledge  of  the  effect 


393 

of  this  Treaty  on  the  country's  wage-producers ;  and 
many  of  them  were  gray-beards  old  enough  to  be 
his  father.  What  was  it  that  conquered  them,  your 
Honors?  We  do  not  say  it,  but  some  of  the  news- 
papers said  that  he  threatened  these  Congressmen 
with  political  annihilation  if  they  did  not  yield  the 
point.  He  would  destroy  them  in  their  districts  at 
home  by  his  press-agency ;  and  he  would  spoil  their 
records  in  Congress1  by  arranging  with  the  Speaker 
of  the  House  never  to  recognize  them  on  the  floor 
of  Congress  and  thus  to  nullify  their  usefulness  to 
their  constituencies.  We  do  not  care  what  he  said 
to  them,  your  Honors.  He  had  the  power  to  injure 
those  men  if  they  did  not  yield.  He  knew  it;  and 
they  knew  it.  He  knew  they  knew  it;  and  they 
knew  he  knew  it.  What  was  this  power?  The 
part  of  it  not  contributed  by  his  press-agency  was 
the  appointing  power  given  him  by  the  Constitu- 
tion for  the  convenience  and  authority  of  public 
business.  It  was  not  given  him  for  the  purpose  of 
effacing  Congress;  not  for  the  purpose  of  forcing 
Congressmen,  in  order  to  save  their  own  heads,  to 
vote  against  the  interests  of  their  constituents.  But 
the  fact  that  he  could  use  this  appointing  power, 
MS  well  as  his  press-agency,  to  effect  the  political 
death  of  these  men  overawed  them  and  deprived 
this  country  of  that  to  which  it  is  entitled,  viz.,  the 
benefit,  on  every  public  question  before  it,  of  the 
judgment  of  Congress  as  a  deliberative  body.  When 
Mr.  Roosevelt  sent  for  these  Congressmen  one  after 
another  and  "talked  them  around,"  he  destroyed 
Congress  as  a  deliberative  body.  A  man  sensitive  to 
the  'delicate  relation  which  must  exist  between  one 
who  has  power  to  do  an  injury  and  the  person  to 
whom  the  injury  can  be  done,  would  have  scorned 
to  take  the  course  taken  by  Mr.  Roosevelt,  But 


394 

above  all  things  be  is  a  politician  and  in  that  role 
be  was,  in  the  matter  of  the  Cuban  Treaty,  a 
usurper  of  the  power  of  Congress  by  diplomatic 
blackmail.  For  he  forced  Congressmen  to  give  up 
their  liberty  of  thought,  speech  and  action  to 
save  their  political  lives.  They  ceased  to  be  Con- 
gressmen and  became  for  the  time  political  assets 
of  Mr.  Koosevelt.  There  seems  to  be  no  doubt  that 
Mr.  Roosevelt,  in  fact,  when  he  has  some  pet  meas- 
ure which  he  wishes  pushed  through  merely  wripes 
out  Congress  by  intimidation  and  himself  becomes 
the  whole  show.  It  must  be  remembered  that  Mr. 
Roosevelt  made  the  Cuban  Treaty  a  private  and 
personal  measure  of  his  own  and  secured  for  him- 
self alone  whatever  reward  was  held  out  to  him 
as  compensation  for  thus  forcing  the  Cuban  Treaty 
through  the  House.  It  makes  no  difference  what 
the  recompense  was;  whether  it  was  the  mere  hope 
of  being  scratched  on  the  back  by  some  portion  of 
the  public  for  having  done  what  the  Importing 
Trust  press  might  call  a  magnificent  act;  whether 
it  was  a  certain  prestige  which  would  help  some 
later  scheme;  or  whether  it  was  a  bribe  in  dollars 
or  doughnuts.  The  object  for  which  this  extraordi- 
nary usurpation  of  the  powers  of  Congress  was 
effected  does  not  affect  the  fact  that  in  this  matter 
we  Americans  were  ruled  by  an  unscrupulous  Czar 
and  were  not  faithfully  served  by  a  constitutional 
President,  who  in  theory  at  least,  is  the  mere  ser- 
vant of  the  people.  As  we  have  hinted,  one  power- 
ful instrument  employed  by  him  to  destroy  Con- 
gress as  the  deliberative  body  which  the  Constitu- 
tion intends  it  to  be,  is  the  Press.  We  quote  from 
an  article  in  Harper's  Weekly  of  September  28, 
1907,  written  by  Mr.  J.  J.  Dickinson,  the  ex-member 
of  White  House  "cuckoos"  before  alluded  to. 


395 

"A  multifarious  host  of  the  phenomena  of  Theodore 
Roosevelt,  man  and  President,  have  been  exploited  and 
heralded  to  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth.  The  one 
manifestation  of  him  which  is  more  potent  and  character- 
istic than  any  of  the  rest  has  never  been  connectedly  set 
forth  to  the  world.  He  is  the  greatest  publicity  promoter 
among  the  sons  of  men  to-day.  Whether  consciously  or 
unconsciously,  he  has  formulated  it,  framed  it,  and  hung 
it  upon  the  walls  of  his  mental  storehouse,  the  fact  is  that 
his  guiding  motto  is  this: 

.  ."Let  me  have  free  access  to  the  channels  of  publicity 
and  I  care  not  who  makes  my  country's  laws — or  what  the 
other  fellow  does." 

In  writing  of  Roosevelt  the  Press-Agent  no  word  of  dis- 
respect is  meant,  for  no  feeling  of  disesteem  is  enter- 
tained. What  shall  be  said  will  be  based  upon  personal 
experience  of  about  a  year  as  assistant  press-agent  under 
the  President,  and  close  observation  extending  over  the 
entire  period  of  his  occupancy  of  the  White  House.  To 
be  more  specific  and  to  give  my  simple  narrative  the  vir- 
tue of  frankness,  I  shall  make  a  confession  at  the  outset, 
to  wit:  For  the  greater  part  of  a  year  I  was  what  is 
known  in  Washington  as  one  of  the  President's  news- 
paper cuckoos.  In  the  parlance  of  Washington,  a  cuckoo 
is  a  journalistic  bird  that  is  permitted  to  make  its  prin- 
cipal roost  close  to  the  Executive  chamber  and  report  for 
the  delectation  of  his  editor,  for  the  enlightenment  of  the 
public  and  the  accommodation  of  the  President,  such  out- 
givings or  internal  operations  of  the  Presidential  mind  as 
may  suit  the  purpose  or  the  whim  of  the  nation's  Chief 
Magistrate.  The  cuckoo,  or  assistant  press-agent,  has  an 
extremely  difficult  and  hazardous  task.  *  *  * 

Theodore  Roosevelt  secured  his  popularity  through  pub- 
licity. He  has  retained,  extended,  and  strengthened  it 
through  publicity.  As  before  stated,  above  all  the  men 
of  his  time  he  understands  the  power  and  necessity  of 
publicity  if  one  would  achieve  great  results.  *  *  * 

Rarely  does  the  President  communicate  with  more  than 
one  cuckoo  at  a  time.  *  *  *  In  his  handling  of  his 
assistant  press-agents  he  observes  the  Napoleonic  method 
of  not  entrusting  the  full  details  of  a  campaign  to  any 
one  of  them.  If  the  assistant  press-agent  be  the  repre- 
sentative of  a  Washington  newspaper  Mr.  Roosevelt  may 
impart  to  him  a  fuller  mass  of  detail  than  to  the  repre- 
sentative of  a  newspaper  elsewhere.  The  reason  for  this 
is  obvious.  The  Washington  newspaper  is  read  by  the 
members  of  Congress  and  other  public  men  in  all  parts  of 
the  country.  Thus,  if  it  suits  the  President's  purpose  bet- 
ter to  plant  the  seeds  first  in  the  minds  of  the  people's 
servants  preliminary  to  sowing  the  whole  broad  field,  he 
will  employ  his  Washington  cuckoo  to  make  primary  an- 
nouncement, in  a  way  somewhat  cryptic  to  the  popular  in- 
telligence, but  sufficiently  significant  TO  THE  MINDS  OF 
THE  EXPERIENCED  POLITICIANS  TO  GIVE  THEM 
WARNING  OF  WHAT  THEY  WOULD  BETTER  DO  IF 
THEY  DO  NOT  WANT  TO  GET  HURT.  If,  thereafter, 
the  politicians  display  either  obtuseness  or  perversity, 


the  President  then  calls  to  his  side  the  cuckoos  of  out  of 
town  newspapers  and  through  them  inaugurates  a  cam- 
paign of  education  that  may  be  either  nation-wide  OK 
CONFINED  TO  THOSE  SECTIONS  OF  THE  COUNTRY 
WHERE  HE  HAS  REASON  TO  BELIEVE  THE  PEO- 
PLE SHOULD  BE  INFORMED  OF  THE  INDISPOSI- 
TION OF  THEIR  CHOSEN  REPRESENTATIVES  AT 
WASHINGTON  TO  BEND  WILLINGLY  TO  THE  EX- 
ECUTIVE PURPOSE.  The  best  illustration  of  the  em- 
ployment of  this  method  that  comes  to  mind  is  found  in 
his  propaganda  of  the  Taft  Presidential  boom.  It  has 
been  more  than  a  year  since  through  his  Washington 
newspaper  cuckoo — the  same  being  none  other  than  the 
contrite  writer  of  these  lines — Mr.  Roosevelt  began  pub- 
licly to  let  the  world  know  that  he  desired  his  able  Secre- 
tary of  War  to  succeed  him  in  the  White  House.  Faith- 
fully his  desire  in  this  matter  was  promulgated  in  a 
Washington  newspaper  so  that  every  member  of  Congress 
who  ran  might  read.  In  droves  they  ran  when  they  did 
read — straight  to  the  White  House.  There  went  Foraker, 
almost  bursting  with  suppressed  wrath.  Also  followed 
Foraker 's  amiable  colleague,  Mr.  Dick,  his  curiousity 
whetted  to  a  razor-edge.  Precious  little  satisfaction  did 
either  of  them  get  on  the  main  point,  for  the  good  and 
sufficient  reason  that  it  is  the  prerogative  of  the  Execu- 
tive to  envelop  himself  in  vast,  impenetrable  silence  when 
he  so  wishes  on  any  topic  under  the  sun.  *  *  *  As 
to  why  the  President  chose  to  impress  first  the  Con- 
gressional mind  with  his  wish  to  pass  the  succession  on  to 
Taft,  that  furnishes  another  interesting  index  of  his 
character  as  a  sagacious  press-agent.  It  was  the  skir- 
mish fire  in  his  line  of  battle  to  develop  the  location  and 
strength  of  the  enemy — "the  other  fellow."  It  brought 
some  of  the  enemy  out  of  the  brush  and  drove  others 
scurrying  to  the  cover  of  stumps  and  dead  logs.  But  he 
marked  them  as  they  moved.  Within  a  few  weeks  he 
knew  who  and  where  the  enemy  was,  and  he  proceeded 
accordingly  to  deal  with  him.  He  waited  six  months,  or 
from  May  to  October,  before  he  set  his  out-of-town 
cuckoos  to  work  openly  on  the  Taft  boom.  Then  in  a  jiffy 
the  whole  broad  continent  heard  its  reverberations.  *  *  * 

He  [Mr.  Roosevelt  at  Jamestown]  began  his  address 
thus: 

"It  is,  of  course,  a  truism  to  say  that  no  other  body  of 
our  countrymen  wield  as  extensive  an  influence  as  those 
who  write  for  the  daily  press  and  for  the  other  period- 
icals. ' ' 

In  saying  this,  the  President  was  not  "jollying"  the 
editors — though  be  it  known  that  when  he  wants  to  be 
he  is  the  most  successful  "jollier"  between  the  two 
oceans.  *  *  *  He  has  invited  to  Washington  and  en- 
tertained at  the  White  House  a  larger  number  of  men  who 
write  than  have  any  half  dozen  of  his  predecessors.  The 
list  of  those  he  has  thus  singled  out  for  distinction  is  a 
long  one  and  growing  longer." 


397 

Your  Honors,  ever  since  Mr.  Roosevelt  has  been 
President,  he  has  been  notorious  as  a  successful 
advertiser.  AVe  might  call  it  by  a  no  longer  but 
an  uglier  name,  if  \ve  said  "conspirator."  For  in 
such  ineauderings  we  can  see  nothing  but  con- 
spiracy— a  conspiracy  between  his  "cuckoos"  and 
himself  to  deceive  the  public  into  moods  favorable 
to  his  schemes,  by  allowing  the  public  to  think  what 
they  read  is  mere  current  news  matter,  culled  by 
reporters  from  all  sorts  of  sources  and  published 
in  good  faith,  instead  of  what  it  really  is,  an  artful 
nii8e  en  scene  to  further  the  private  purposes  of 
the  President.  For,  your  Honors,  the  purpose  is  a 
private  and  personal  purpose  of  Mr.  Roosevelt.  He 
is  prostituting  his  high  office  to  the  ends  of  his 
private  ambitions. 

Now,  your  Honors,  if  Mr.  Roosevelt  would  thus 
stoop  to  low  intrigue  in  such  matters  as  Mr.  Dick- 
inson has  described,  why  should  we  not  believe, 
that,  for  whatever  motive  might  seem  him  good,  he 
would  do  so  with  these  wily  plaintiffs?  He  con- 
spired with  the  newspapers  to  launch  the  Taft  boom 
in  the  method  best  suited  to  his  purposes;  but 
why  is  it  not  possible  that  the  launching  of  the 
Taft  boom  is  but  the  rounding  out  of  his  conspira- 
tor's contract  with  these  wily  plaintiffs?  Mr.  Taft 
is  already  advertised  widely  as  the  instrument  by 
which  "revision,"  the  end  "most  devoutly  to  be 
wished"  by  these  wily  plaintiffs,  is  to  be  accom- 
plished. Our  old  lawyers'  maxim,  your  Honors, 
says',  "Fahus  in  uno,  falsus  in  omnibus;"  and  if 
Mr.  Roosevelt  will  so  plainly  conspire  in  one  mat- 
ter, why  not  in  another? 

As  to  measures  which  Mr.  Roosevelt  crushes 
through  Congress  by  using  the  newspapers  to 
"worn  them  [Congressmen]  what  they  would  bet- 


398 

ter  do  if  they  do  not  want  to  get  hurt/7  Mr.  Roose- 
velt knows  that  his  one  single  opinion,  his  one  sin- 
gle stock  of  honesty,  his  one  single  cargo  of  patriot- 
ism, or  his  one  single  group  of  brain-cells  in  the 
chamber  of  intelligence,  is  not  likely  to  be  of  a 
better  quality  or  quantity  than  the  corresponding 
article  furnished  as  the  residuum  of  debate  and  de- 
liberation after  an  exhaustive  threshing  out  of  the 
whole  matter  on  the  floor  of  Congress.  He  knows 
that  one  man's  wisdom  is  not  likely  to  exceed  the 
boiled  down  sap  and  syrup  of  the  wisdom  of  nearly 
five  hundred  men,  all  intelligent,  all  educated,  at 
least  in  the  great  school  of  experience,  and  all  sin- 
cerely patriotic.  And  with  regard  to  whom  our 
next  President  shoud  be,  he  knows  that  the  people 
of  the  United  States,  acting  through  their  conven- 
tions, are  more  apt  to  choose  the  very  man  they 
wish  to  represent  the  policies  they  want,  than  any 
one  individual  citizen  like  Mr.  Roosevelt,  however 
pure  in  motive  or  high  in  patriotism  he  might  be. 

Moreover,  in  all  these  matters,  which  properly 
come  before  Congress,  Mr.  Roosevelt  knows  that  he 
is  given  the  veto  power  by  the  Constitution,  and 
that  no  wicked  legislation  can  smirch  him  or  harm 
the  country,  unless  two-thirds  of  both  Houses  of 
Congress  are  all  wicked  at  once.  He  knows  he  can 
s'ave  his  reputation  by  the  stroke  of  a  pen ;  and  he 
knows  the  public  would  hold  him  guiltless  even 
though  it  held  Congress  guilty.  Ah,  your  Honors, 
we  do  not  believe  Mr.  Roosevelt  would  want  us  to 
think  he  thought  himself  superior  to  the  concensus 
of  Congress  or  to  our  great  people  on  any  subject 
affecting  their  interests.  Remembering  that  Mr. 
Roosevelt  is  an  ambitious  politician  before  he  is 
a  patriot,  it  is  far  more  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
lie  is  grinding  some  private  axe  of  his  ambition  in 


399 

his  devious  ways,  than  tliut  lie  is  really  furthering 
or  desiring  to  further  the  public  good.  And  if  that 
is  so,  your  Honors,  do  not  all  signs  point  to  his 
affiliation  with  these  wily  plaintiffs  in  their  effort 
to  rape  the  lock  of  our  national  savings  bank? 

Considering  the  sinister  use  he  constantly  makes 
of  it,  the  great  power  for  evil  which  Mr.  Roosevelt, 
through  his  Press-Agency,  has  gained  over  public 
opinion,  as  described  by  Mr.  Dickinson,  is  little 
short  of  appalling.  It  is  easy  to  see  how  he  gets  and 
keeps  this  power.  In  a  word,  it  is  the  old  bread- 
and-butter  argument.  Public  opinion  conforms  to 
the  bread-and-butter  necessities  of  the  "cuckoos"  at 
the  capital.  Upon  its  flavor  and  smack  hangs  the 
grub  of  the  reporters.  If  they  fill  their  papers  with 
certain  "copy"  indicated  by  the  President,  and  that 
copy  gets  in  toothsome  form  to  the  public,  the 
"cuckoos"  get  their  grub.  Otherwise  they  may  get 
the  sack — empty.  Mr.  Dickinson  tells  us  how  this 
is: 

' '  He  who  is  cuckoo  to-day  may  find  his  place  upon  the 
perch  taken  to-morrow  by  another  bird  of  fairer  plumage; 
for  the  cuckoo  wots  not  at  what  hour  he  is  to  be  divested 
of  his  honors,  his  privileges,  and  immunities.  It  is  as 
much  the  President's  prerogative  to  choose  his  assistant 
press-agents  as  to  select  the  members  of  his  cabinet,  and 
it  is  as  incumbent  upon  the  one  as  the  other  to  step  aside 
whenever  the  President  indicates  a  desire  for  a  change. 
And  when  the  deposed  cuckoo  nutters  with  broken  wing 
from  his  roost  under  the  White  House  eyes  he  may  find 
that  his  editor  has  separated  him  from  his  salary." 

Mr.  Roosevelt  is  the  Mrs.  Eddy  of  superlative 
politics,  and  if  you  are  a  "cuckoo"  and  fail  to  pro- 
duce in  your  home  paper  at  the  psychological  mo- 
ment the  exact  shading  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  thoughts 
and  aspirations,  you  are  evidently  under  the  domin- 
ion of  malicious  animal  magnetism  and  "your  editor 
may  separate  you  from  your  salary;"  and  all  in 


400 

the  name  of  the  dear  people!  Should  any  man  re- 
port his  own  opinion,  or  deviate  in  any  material 
way  from  the  exact  line  laid  down  by  Mr.  Roosevelt, 
the  headsman  winks  for  the  unfortunate  in  the 
near  distance.  When  one  reflects  on  the  thought- 
lessness of  the  average  reader  and  the  fact  that 
nine  out  of  ten  never  rise  above  their  newspaper, 
the  self-effacement  of  Congress  before  the  Roose- 
veltian  frenzy  is  not  hard  to  explain;  and  one  can- 
not help  asking  himself  the  question  whether  or 
not  our  people  after  all  are  not  of  monarchical 
pattern.  Dearly  do  they  love  a  one-man  power.  It 
suits  their  hero-worshiping  mood,  and — their  lazi- 
ness. So,  under  Mr.  Roosevelt's  careful  leading 
of  his  "cuckoo"  flock  with  their  seductive  messages* 
to  the  dear  public,  the  most  solemn  and  oracular 
deliverances  of  our  newspaper  sancta  sanctorum- 
may  be  only  the  graphophonic  repetitions  of  the 
grand  things  poured  into  the  "cuckoo's''  ear  at  the 
White  House;  and  yet,  from  the  indolence  of  the 
public  and  its  willingness  to  swallow  political  pab- 
ulum from  popular  people  without  a  wink,  such 
effusions,  the  adroit  suggestions  of  personal  ambi- 
tion, are  sure  to  determine  public  opinion.  For  in- 
stance, listen  to  this  from  the  Pittsburgh  Leader, 
commenting  upon  the  profits  of  the  Standard  Oil 
Company,  as  divulged  by  the  report  of  Mr.  Herbert 
Knox  Smith,  of  the  Bureau  of  Corporations : 

"  'Profits'  and  'earnings'  are  wrong  words  to  use. 
Loot  or  plunder  would  be  better.  *  *  * 

"It  is  not  a  question  of  water  or  fictitious  capitaliza- 
tion with  this  company;  it  is  simply  a  matter  of  down- 
right robbery." 

Your  Honors,  Mr.  Roosevelt  is  directly  responsi- 
ble for  these  atrocious  words.  He  has  shown  as 
little  regard  or  as  little  scruple  for  sacred  property 


401 

rights  as  it  is  possible  to  imagine;  and  here  is  the 
echo  of  his  cuckoo  press!  Your  Honors,  the  only 
"loot"  and  "plunder,"  the  only  "downright  rob- 
bery" in  sight  is  being  perpetrated  by  Mr.  Roosevelt 
and  his  cringing  newspaper  followers  and  cuckoos 
against  the  reputations  of  people  who,  at  any  rate, 
earn  their  living  in  faithful  and  hard  work  out- 
side of  politics.  This  paper  was  simply  trying 
to  out-Herod  Herod  himself  in  its  push  for  im- 
perial favor;  and  the  result  is  this  hoarse-throated 
anarchy,  this  clarion  call  to  the  jail-birds  and  slum- 
gudgeons  to  rally  for  the  plucking  of  this  corpora- 
tion against  which  no  charge  can  be  brought  other 
than  the  charge  of  a  wise,  far-sighted,  sagacious, 
and  economical  management  of  its  business  and  a 
solution  of  problems  of  production  and  distribu- 
tion which  have  brought  their  no  more  than  merely 
just  reward.  This  Kooseveltian  obsession  does  not 
seem  to  have  spared  such  a  high-class  newspaper 
as  the  Philadelphia  Press,  which  says,  in  connec- 
tion with  the  same  political  outrage,  the  rape  of 
the  profit  sheets  of  the  Standard  Oil  Company  and 
their  malicious  exhibition,  with  anarchistic  com- 
ment to  the  public : 

"When  a  corporation  handles  90  per  cent,  of  a  ne- 
cessity of  life,  as  petroleum  and  its  products  are,  its 
operations  have  no  right  to  be  secret.  *  *  *  No  man 
can  be  trusted  with  the  power  in  secret  over  the  price  of 
a  commodity  necessary  to  all." 

Your  Honors,  such  talk  as  this  is  pure  sedition, 
in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  law  gives  every  person 
or  corporation  the  right  to  buy  as  much  property 
as  it  pleases,  keep  it  as  long  at  is  pleases,  and  sell 
it  when  it  pleases,  at  any  price  it  is  willing  to 
take  and  the  buyer  is  willing  to  give,  rather  than 
go  without  the  property.  There  is  absolutely  not 


402 

a  line  of  law  anywhere  fixing-  a  limit  to  the  acquire- 
ment, as  objects  of  trade,  of  the  "necessities  of 
life;"  and  what  power  but  that  of  the  people 
through  constitutional  amendment  can  put  the  ban 
of  outlawry  on  him  who  controls  "90  per  cent,  of 
a  necessity  of  life?"  And  in  the  meantime  how 
can  such  papers  as  the  Philadelphia  Press  lend 
themselves  so  far  to  anarchy  as  to  say,  "No  man 
can  be  trusted  with  the  power  in  secret  over  the 
price  of  a  commodity  necessary  to  all?"  Why  do 
their  Solons  nod  and  entrust  their  columns  to  the 
scribbling  of  callow  sophomores?  The  law  does 
not  limit  rights  of  property  in  "commodities  nec- 
essary to  all;"  and  until  it  does,  and  does  it  so 
distinctly  that  every  man  will  know  just  where  he's 
at  and  what  his  rights  are,  all  harangues  of  this 
nature  are  an  invitation  for  each  fellow  to  judge 
for  himself  whether  his  neighbor's  property  is  "a 
commodity  necessary  to  all,"  and  so  common  prop- 
erty, and,  in  regard  to  stealing  from  the  "malefac- 
tor of  great  wealth,"  to  practice  any  form  of  casu- 
istry which  his  ingenuity  may  furnish.  Thus  does 
the  dread  form  of  anarchy  loom  up  in  the  lurid 
light  of  Mr.  Koosevelt's  fulmination  against  our 
client,  American  Production ;  and  from  that  source 
these  wily  plaintiffs  draw  their  hope  of  soon  crack- 
ing our  savings-bank  safe  again. 

Bearing  in  mind  the  fact  that  everything  rela- 
tive to  the  President's  movements,  so  anxiously 
sought  after  by  the  press,  must  come  only  through 
the  cuckoo-chorus,  and  so  with  substantial  direct- 
ness from  Mr.  Roosevelt  himself,  a  curious  bit  of 
sagacious  contrivance  just  now  occurs  to  us.  You 
will  remember,  your  Honors,  how  badly  Vice-Presi- 
dent Fairbanks  fared  at  the  hands  of  the  press, 
with  regard  to  the  "cocktail''  episode  at  his  house 


403 

hi  Indianapolis;  with  what  persistency  it  was  kept 
going  the  rounds  of  the  press  under  one  form  or 
another  and  never  let  die;  how  the  Methodists  of 
Indiana  were  kept  stirred  up  about  it;  and  how  a 
certain  bishop  was  reported  to  have  said  that  it  was 
Mr.  Eoosevelt  himself  who  ordered  the  cocktails 
for  Mr.  Fairbanks'  reception,  a  report  which  was 
afterwards  denied ;  and  how  at  last  the  Methodists 
of  Indiana  were  alleged  to  have  declined  to  send  Mr. 
Fairbanks  as  a  delegate  to  the  Baltimore  confer- 
ence because  he  had  served  cocktails  at  his  house 
on  the  occasion  in  question.  But  did  you  observe 
in  the  press,  only  the  day  or  so  after  Mr.  Fairbanks 
was  turned  down  as  a  delegate,  as  before  noted,  the 
following  item  in  the  daily  papers? 

"The  President  will  ride  on  the  boat  Mississippi.  The 
great  steamboat  will  be  a  literal  floating  WATER  WA- 
GON, for  not  a  drop  of  liquor  will  be  allowed  on  board. ' ' 

And  a  day  or  so  later  did  you  remark  this  item  in 
your  daily  paper : 

"NO  COCKTAILS  FOR  THE  PRESIDENT.  Sherry 
will  be  the  strongest  drink  at  the  St.  Louis  luncheon" — 

following  with  the  details  of  how,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  "a  host  of  Governors,  including  the  Gov- 
ernor of  Kentucky  would  be  present,"  "Bole"  was 
ordered  "to  cut  out  the  cocktails?" 

And  a  week  or  so  afterwards,  did  you  observe  this 
in  a  New  York  paper : 


' '  Stamboul,  La.,  Oct.  7. — Late  this  afternoon  the  Presi- 
dent had  failed  to  get  a  bear. 

"A  courier  came  into  Stamboul  this  evening  from  the 
camp  and  reported  that  the  President  had  not  returned. 
The  supposition  therefore  was  that  he  had  not  been  suc- 
cessful, as  the  game  would  have  been  brought  into  camp 
if  he  had  killed  anything.  It  is  expected  that  he  will 
remain  in  the  thickets  until  dark.  He  carried  a  noon 
lunch  and  a  bottle  of  water." 


404 

Abstemious  austerity  to  burn ! 

And  but  little  later  the  papers  were  hastening 
to  tell  the  country  that  Mr.  Taft,  at  Manila,  would 
tolerate  no  liquors  at  his  reception. 

And  under  date  of  Nov.  4, 1907,  it  was  piped  from 
St.  Louis  that 

"President  Roosevelt  is  greatly  pleased  with  the  State 
wide  prohibition  feature  of  the  Oklahoma  Constitution 
and  that  it  will  constitute  one  of  the  strongest  reasons  for 
his  approving  the  document." 

Oh,  your  Honors,  in  view  of  our  knowledge  of 
this  "cuckoo"  chorus  in  the  White  House,  is  not  all 
this  cold-water  nonsense  sickening?  Does  not  it 
look  like  a  Eoosevelt  bid  for  the  Prohibition  vote? 
Isn't  it  just  a  cut  and  dried  program  throughout 
of  this  manufacturer  of  public  sentiment?  First, 
we  have  poor  Mr.  Fairbanks  pilloried  for  counte- 
nancing cocktails.  Then  we  have  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
cold-water  virtues  rung  in  by  contrast  with  a  fee- 
ble echo  of  "me  too"  from  Mr.  Taft,  Then,  at  the 
present  writing,  we  have  Mr.  Koosevelt  again  made 
illustrious  by  his  prohibition  tastes.  Walk  up, 
gentlemen  of  the  Convention,  whether  you  choose 
Roosevelt  or  Taft,  you  may  be  sure  of  the  cold- 
water  vote! 

Not  only  in  the  management  of  his  press-agency 
has  Mr.  Roosevelt  shown  his  natural  bias  to  cap- 
ture public  opinion  in  questionable  ways  and  to 
use  as  a  Big  Stick  power  placed  in  his  hands  ex- 
clusively for  a  different  purpose.  The  Constitution 
did  not  intend  that  any  President  should  use  his 
appointing  power  practically  to  snuff  out  Congres- 
sional opinion;  nor  did  it  intend  that  what  is 
known  as  its  "commerce  clause"  should  be  used  as 
a  leverage  to  hoist  any  politician  into  meteoric  pop- 
ularity. The  Constitution  gave  Congress  power  "To 


405 

regulate  commerce  with  foreign  nations,  and  among 
the  several  States,  and  with  the  Indian  tribes;"  and 
it  meant  that  the  power  of  regulating  commerce 
"among  the  several  States"  should  be  of  exactly  the 
same  nature  as  that  given  to  Congress  with  regard 
to  "foreign  nations"  and  "the  Indian  tribes." 
It  meant  merely  that  Congress  might  take  note  of 
the  physical  character  of  the  objects  of  such  com- 
merce; whether  these  objects  should  be  exchanged 
at  all;  or,  if  exchanged,  whether  they  should  un- 
dergo inspection  as  to  their  character.  There  never 
could  have  been  any  intention  to  give  Congress 
power  to  help  a  politician  wring  arbitrary  tribute 
from  corporations  within  either  of  the  States.  The 
"regulation"  was  for  the  purpose  of  giving  Con- 
gress power  to  provide  for  sanitary  and  law-observ- 
ing-conditions  in  the  goods  themselves.  Cut  Mr. 
Roosevelt  notoriously  construes  this  power  "to  reg- 
ulate commerce  *  *  *  *  among  the  several 
States"  in  the  same  manner  that  he  construes  his 
appointing  power,  viz.,  as  a  Big  Stick  wherewith 
to  club  into  quietness  any  one  who  does  not  bend 
to  his  will  in  seeking  some  private  and  personal 
end.  For  example,  evidently  for  the  purpose  of 
rousing  the  ignorant  to  a  frenzy  of  admiration,  he 
desires  to  be  able  to  get  at  the  private  accounts  of 
a  corporation  in  order  that  he  may  show  up  its 
profits  and  point  to  it  as  a  "cormorant"  and  as  "a 
malefactor  of  great  wealth"  and  thus  make  himself 
"solid"  with  the  "peepul."  And  accordingly, 
through  his  officers  and  servants,  lie  <  onnnnuds  the 
corporation  to  produce  its  books  and  papers  in 
court  at  a  certain  time  and  thereat  and  thereupon 
to  defend  itself  against  indictment  under  the  Sher- 
man Law  as  a  combination  in  restraint  of  trade. 


400 

Now,  your  Honors,  under  the  Constitution,  Fourth 
Amendment, 

' '  The  right  of  the  people  to  be  secure  in  their  persons, 
houses,  papers,  and  effects,  against  unreasonable  searches 
and  seizures,  shall  not  be  violated,  and  no  warrant  shall 
issue  but  upon  probable  cause,  supported  by  oath  or  af- 
firmation, AND  PARTICULARLY  DESCRIBING  THE 
PLACE  TO  BE  SEARCHED,  AND  THE  PERSONS  OR 
THINGS  TO  BE  SEIZED;"— 

and  under  this  constitutional  aegis  any  corpora- 
tion, insisting  upon  its  strict  letter,  could  raise 
a  question  which  would  defeat  the  power  thus 
usurped  for  the  blackmailing  of  corporations;  but 
if  it  should  simply  insist  upon  its  rights,  Mr.  Koose- 
velt,  using  the  Big  Stick  in  the  "commerce  clause,'7 
would  shut  off  from  interstate  commerce  the  goods 
of  such  a  corporation,  perhaps  to  its  ruin.  That  is, 
unless  a  corporation  will  pay  either  in  cash  or  pop- 
ularity, tribute  to  an  unscrupulous  politician,  it 
can  be  destroyed  by  this  false  and  wicked  construc- 
tion of  a  constitutional  clause  which  never  meant 
to  give  Congress  jurisdiction  over  the  person  of  a 
State  corporation,  but  merely  over  its  products  and 
then  only  when  the  subject  of  interstate  commerce, 
and  by  general  legislation  affecting  in  tlie  same 
manner  all  similar  products. 

For  our  part,  we  do  not  see  why  the  interstate- 
commerce  clause  of  the  Constitution  cannot  be 
made  to  authorize  inquisitions  into  the  private  af- 
fairs of  individuals  as  well  as  those  of  "trusts," 
otherwise  corporations.  For,  under  that  clause, 
Congress  has  power  "to  regulate  commerce  among 
the  several  States,"  and  so  far  as  appears  from  the 
constitutional  language,  the  word  "commerce1'  is 
quite  unlimited  in  its  application.  It  seems  to  us, 
therefore,  that  if,  by  the  threat  of  preventing  a 
corporation  from  doing  interstate  business,  that 


407 

corporation  can  be  compelled  to  show  up  its 
profits  and  thus  furnish  ammunition  to  the  francs- 
tireurs  of  our  political  mob,  the  same  threat  could 
compel  individuals  to  do  likewise;  and  thus  the 
way  could  be  opened  to  unlimited  blackmail  and  to 
all  the  deviltry  from  which  we  supposed  we  had 
escaped  by  adopting  a  Constitution  defining  our 
rights.  We  repeat,  sauce  for  the  goose  is  sauce 
for  the  gander;  the  same  compulsion  applied  to  the 
corporation  can  be  applied  to  the  individual.  If 
the  regulation  of  interstate  commerce  is  not  ex- 
clusively iii  rein  where  corporations  are  involved, 
it  need  not  be  where  individuals,  are  involved.  If 
in  determining  whether  certain  goods  made  by  a 
corporation  shall  be  admitted  to  interstate  com- 
merce, you  need  not  confine  yourself  to  the  goods 
themselves,  and  their  effect  upon  the  happiness  of 
users;  but,  ignoring  the  goods  entirely  as  a  physi- 
cal proposition,  you  can  go  farther  back  and  in- 
quire who  produced  the  goods  and  let  their  rights 
in  interstate  commerce  depend  upon  the  moral  char- 
acter of  their  producer  alone  as  that  character 
seems  to  you,  there  seems  no  good  reason  why  the 
goods  of  an  individual  also  should  not  be  put  to 
the  same  test  and,  as  to  their  interstate  rights, 
s'tand  or  fall  according  as  their  maker  was  white 
or  colored,  Jew  or  Gentile.  Where  would  this 
thing  end,  your  Honors,  if  Mr.  Roosevelt's  position 
were  right? 

In  thus  manufacturing  popularity  for  future  use 
in  line  with  his  private  ambitions,  Mr.  RooseATlt 
resembles  a  messenger  boy,  who,  sent  to  deliver  a 
package  to  some  one,  should  hold  the  package  as 
his  own  property.  The  President  is  merely  the 
messenger  of  the  people.  He  is  sent  with  a  par-k- 
a°"e  of  appointments  to  serve  the  people's  interests 


408 

and  not  his  own  personal  ambitions;  but  he  appro- 
priates this  commission  as  a  means  of  disciplining 
Congressmen  who  do  not  vote  for  a  Cuban  Treaty, 
a  measure  which  he  imagines  will  add  to  his  per- 
sonal popularity.  Or,  he  is  the  messenger  of  the 
people  under  the  interstate-commerce  clause  of  the 
Constitution,  to  regulate  such  commerce  for  the 
purpose  of  governmental  revenue,  to  prevent  dis- 
putes between  States,  or  for  some  other  common 
purpose,  note  being  taken  of  the  fact  that  all  such 
regulations  were  meant  to  be  in  rcm  and  not  in 
personam,  as  our  legal  expression  has  it;  and  yet 
the  President  twists  this  power  into  a  Big  Stick 
to  hammer  a  corporation  into  acquiesence  in  a  bar- 
barous inquisition  of  its  books,  for  no  other  appar- 
ent object  than  to  continue  his  shadow  dance  for 
popularity  among  thoughtless  people;  unless  it 
might  be  to  frighten  and  discourage  our  client, 
American  Production,  for  the  benefit  of  these  wily 
plaintiffs. 

An  illustration  of  this  latter  usurpation  of  power 
is  furnished  by  the  prosecution,  or,  more  properly, 
the  persecution  of  the  Standard  Oil  Company. 
There  is  no  doubt  whatever  that  this  suit  was  un- 
dertaken at  the  special  instance  of  Mr.  Roosevelt 
and  as  a  spectacular  fulfilment  of  his  fulminatory 
menace  against  "malefactors  of  great  wealth."  Con- 
sidered as  a  corporation  having  an  army  of  inno- 
cent employees  and  another  army  of  as  innocent 
stockholders,  the  only  offence  of  which  this  com- 
pany had  been  guilty  was  that  of  being  perhaps 
the  greatest  in  this  country.  This  feature  of  size 
however,  was  exactly  what  attracted  Mr.  Roose- 
velt's attention.  In  the  decalogue  of  the  President 
it  is  strictly  forbidden  to  be  either  great  or  wealthy 
unless  as  a  tributory  to  the  President.  Now,  by 


409 

virtue  of  using  tlie  interstate-commerce  clause  of 
the  Constitution  as  a  Big  Stick,  this  corporation 
was  compelled  to  turn  its  book£  over  to  Mr.  Roose- 
velt's special  agent  for  the  prosecution  and  this  spe- 
cial agent  hastened  to  lay  before  the  country  a 
statement  of  the  profit-account  of  the  pilloried  cor- 
poration, for  no  other  purpose  in  the  world  than 
to  excite  the  enviousness,  covetousness,  and  primi- 
tive malice  of  those  of  us  whose  brain-cells  have 
an  arrangement  somewhat  like  those  of  highway 
robbers;  for  highway  robbers  also  operate  against 
others  because  others  have  made  money  which  the 
"road  agents''  want.  But  highway  robbers,  your 
Honors,  are  not  so  shallow  as  to  call  "illegitimate 
profits'1'  of  "malefactors  of  great  wealth"  the  money 
they  are  reaching  for.  Because  they  seem  to  know 
if  others  don't,  that  neither  our  Constitution  nor 
our  laws  fix  a  point  beyond  which  may  not  go 
profits  made  by  selling  your  own  property  at  the 
price  at  which  the  buyer  also  sees  a  profit  in  it  for 
him.  As  far  as  we  are  concerned,  for  the  robust 
frankness  of  the  highwayman,  who,  when  he  holds 
up  and  robs  a  rich  man,  calls  it  just  a  plain  hold- 
up, and  does  not  soil  his  soul  with  hypocrisy,  we 
have  a  greater  respect  than  for  the  sneaks  and 
snivelers,  whether  in  the  pulpit,  on  the  college  lec- 
ture platform,  or  in  the  editorial  or  the  presiden- 
tial chair,  who  salve  their  consciences  and  fan  the 
fire  in  their  itching  palms  with  the  explanation 
that  they  purpose  to  appropriate  to  themselves 
merely  the  "illegitimate  profits"  of  "malefactors  of 
great  wealth;"  although,  after  all,  the  highwayman 
and  these  latter  gentry  are  common  criminals  on 
the  same  job. 

In  his  attacks  upon  wealth  as  such,  there  is  no 
calculating  the  damage  done  by  Mr.  TvooseveJt  to 


410 

the  every-day  morals  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
our  intellectual  weaklings.     It  is  impossible  to  de- 
fend him  on  the  ground  that  it  is  only  wealth  dis- 
honestly gotten  against  which    he    launches    his 
Olympian  lightning.     His  talk  about  inheritance 
and  income  taxes,  his  deliverances  as  to  "swollen 
fortunes"  and  their  proper  limitation,  and  his  ma- 
licious1 and  mischievous  exhibition  to  the  country, 
not  of  any  wrong-doing,  for  not  the  slightest  wrong- 
doing has  yet  been  shown,  but  of  the  alleged  enor- 
mous profits  of  the  Standard  Oil  Company,  prove 
that,  in  his  venemous  persecution  of  this  great  com- 
pany, it  is  not  punishment  for  the  violation  of  any 
law  which  he  aims  at,  but  the  destruction  of  our 
client,  American  Production,  and,  as  we  believe,  in 
the  interest  of  these  wily  plaintiffs,  whose  ally  we 
solemnly  aver  him  to  be;  and  in  obedience  to  the 
inspiration,  of  whatver    kind,  which    he    receives 
from  these  wily  plaintiffs,  he  fans  to  white-heat 
flame  among  our  countrymen  all  the  narrow,  mali- 
cious, and  vicious  prejudices,  all  the  enviousness 
and  covetousness  of  which  simple  souls  are  capa- 
ble, and  labors  to  stampede  them  to  his  assistance 
in  overwhelming  our  client,  American  Production, 
by  a  "revision"  of  the  dike  or  an  approval  of  the 
thrice-infamous  German  Agreement.  Your  Honors, 
in  reviewing  all  the  facts  that  dove-tail  into  each 
other  so  closely  in  this  combined  assault  of  these 
wily  plaintiffs  and  of  Mr.  Roosevelt  upon  Ameri- 
can Production,  would  we  not  be  more  than  justi- 
fied in  supposing  something  deeper  than  a  tacit 
conspiracy    between    them    to  this  common  end? 
What  more  effective  instrument  could  these  wily 
plaintiffs  have  selected  for  their  purpose  than  Mr. 
.Roosevelt?     What  action  more  favorable  to  these 
wily  plaintiffs  could  Mr.  Roosevelt  have  taken  than 


411 

to  discredit  American  Production  by  characterizing 
its  most  powerful  representatives  as  "malefactors 
of  great  wealth"  and  by  showing  to  the  public  the 
profits  of  our  greatest  corporations  and  so  anger- 
ing the  howling  rabble  against  the  rival  of  these 
wily  plaintiffs  in  our  market,  American  Produc- 
tion? And  what  action  could  Mr.  Roosevelt  have 
taken  which  more  clearly  gave  the  true  key  to  all 
his  violence  against  American  Production  than  his 
part  in  the  German  Agreement?  Does  it  not  look, 
your  Honors,  as  if,  bound  to  these  wily  plaintiffs 
by  invisible  but  unbreakable  ties,  committed  hea'rt 
and  soul  to  all  their  vicious  purposes,  working  with 
nil  his  power  to  put  the  people  in  a  mood  to  give 
the  wily  plaintiffs  what  they  asked,  the  key  to  our 
savings  bank,  yet  fearing  the  effect  of  an  open  alli- 
ance with  these  wily  plaintiffs  in  their  campaign 
for  "revision,"  upon  his  ambition  for  future  favors 
from  his  own  political  party,  he  saw  and  used  the 
Sternburg  route  to  dike-destruction,  which  would 
do  everything  possible  to  be  done  by  tariff  "revi- 
sion," and  yet  leave  him  still  the  plausible  cham- 
pion of  Protection? 

But  in  spite  of  all  his  open  and  see-ret  faults,  his 
sins  of  omissiou  and  commission,  outrages  against 
decent  conservatism  and  insults  to  the  common 
sense  and  often  the  consciences  of  his  humble  sub- 
jects there  are  many,  camp-followers  and  others, 
who  see  in  Mr.  Roosevelt  the  fulfillment  of  the  ages 
for  wisdom  and  integrity.  But  we  cannot  reconcile 
his  sayings  and  doings  with  common  rationality,  to 
say  nothing  about  reconciling  them  with  the  notion 
that  he  is  the  wise  of  all  the  wise. 

Particularly  in  his  presto-changing  of  all  our 
unrighteousness  to  righteousness,  our  Chief  Ma- 
gician seems  to  forget,  or  rather  he  explicitly 


412 

scorns  our  Antinian  bonds  to  Mother  Earth.  Bus- 
iness, industry,  every  road  from  the  bakery  to  our 
poor  stomachs,  must  rather  "go  to  the  wall"  than 
that  "My  Policies"  shall  deviate  one  jot  or  tittle 
from  their  ordained  path.*  And  yet,  if  thou  starv- 
est  out  of  commission  our  stomachs,  O  Great  Ma- 
gician, wherewith  shall  we  assimilate  thy  Manna? 
We  don't  think  this  method  of  attacking  unright- 
eousness shows  wisdom. 

But  as  to  integrity,  the  case  is  just  as  bad;  for 
Mr.  Koosevelt,  according  to  his  own  definition,  is 
the  greatest  "Malefactor  of  Great  Wealth"  in  the 
world.  Because  he  is  the  most  powerful  potentate 
in  the  world,  merely  by  virtue  of  his  hold  on  pub- 
lic opinion  here,  no  matter  by  what  inside  "deal," 
by  what  conspiring  with  poor  bread-winning  cuck- 
oos of  the  press,  or  by  what  effacement  of  Con- 
gressmen, who  have  learned  "what  they  would  bet- 
ter do  if  they  do  not  want  to  get  hurt."  Now,  your 
Honors,  if  wealth  is  power,  as  sure  as  we  live, 
power  is  wealth.  Therefore,  Mr.  Roosevelt  is  the 
wealthiest  man  on  earth.  Then,  is  the  frightening 
of  the  country  into  a  panic  a  benefaction  or  a  male- 
faction?  We  think  you  will  agree  that  it  is  "evil 
doing"  rather  than  "well  doing."  Well,  that  is  a 
malefaction  and  the  fellow  wrho  does*  it  is  a  male- 
factor. And  we  submit  that  wre  have  proved  our 
statement. 

Then,  again,  as  to  this  head  of  integrity,  we 
are  sorely  under  stress  for  another  reason.  Mr. 


*  Mr.  Roosevelt,  in  his  Keokuk  speech,  used  this  language: 
' '  At  intervals  during  the  last  few  months  the  appeal  has  been 
made  to  m  •»  not  to  enforce  the  law  against  certain  wrongdoers 
of  great  wealth,  because  to  do  so  would  interfere  with  the 
business  prosperity  of  the  country.  *  *  *  In  each  case 
the  answer  must  be  that  *  *  *  if  righteousness  con- 
flicts with  the  fancied  needs  of  business,  then  the  latter  must  go 
to  the  wall." 


413 

Roosevelt  calls  some  of  us  "Malefactors  of  Great 
Wealth"  and  says  we  are  "trusts''  of  abhorrent  de- 
vices. But,  through  his  press-agency  and  the  inci- 
dental powers  of  his  office  unlawfully  used,  Mr. 
Roosevelt  has  "cornered"  public  opinion  just  the 
same  as  s'oine  of  us  wicked  ones  corner  beef,  to- 
bacco, paper,  kerosene  oil,  steel,  cotton,  and  the 
like.  But  public  opinion  is  just  as  much  a  neces- 
sary of  business  life  as  wheat  is  of  domestic  life; 
and  yet  Mr.  Roosevelt  seems  to  hold  about  our 
whole  crop  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand  and  he  is 
squeezing  the  rest  of  us  up  to  nominating  him  for 
a  third  term  as  the  price  at  which  he  holds  it.  In 
other  words,  he  is  a  great  public  opinion  "trust." 
He  cornered  it  by  just  as  dark  ways  as  we  ever 
cornered  wheat  or  anything  else.  And  he  is  not 
going  to  let  go  his1  grip  until  he  gets  his  price.  Ac- 
cording to  Mr.  Roosevelt  this  being  a  great  big 
"trust"  with  a  swollen  fortune,  "exacting"  and  "ex- 
torting" awful  things  of  the  dear  public,  is  very, 
very  wrong;  and  we  think  he  convicts  himself  of 
being  at  any  rate  an  active  partner  in  "The  Wicked- 
est Trust  in  the  World." 

Now  along  back  a.  Avays  wo  read  you  a  speech 
from  a  New  Haven  gentleman  who  spoke  right  out 
in  meeting  about  Mr.  Roosevelt;  and  to  show  that 
he  is  not  the  only  one  who  is  crawling  out  from 
under  the  general  intimidation  which  Mr.  Roosevelt 
holds  over  the  country,  wo  will  read  you  a  letter 
printed  in  the  Now  York  Sun  on  the  morning  of 
November  14,  1007,  as  follows  : 


414 

ME.  ROOSEVELT. 


An  Estimate   of  His  Character   and   a  Prayer   for  His 
Conduct. 

To  the  Editor  of  The  Sun — Sir:  The  business  com- 
munity revolts  against  inquisitorial  investigations  in  sup- 
port of  "My  Policies,"  however  strenuous  and  lofty,  in- 
stituted by  Mr.  Roosevelt  and  prosecuted  by  his  lieuten- 
ants in  the  interest  of  or  in  vindication  of  them,  rather 
than  of  the  "square  deals"  which  he  often  misinterprets. 
His  best  friends,  those  who  personally  have  known  him 
from  his  youth,  watched  his  career  with  pride  and  sat- 
isfaction and  have  dared  to  advise  him,  agree  that  he  is 
absolutely  honest  but  unwise,  impulsive,  shrewd,  obstinate 
and  impatient  of  contradiction.  Others  who  have  come 
into  personal  contact  with  him  assert  that  he  is  deaf  to 
argument,  many  times  unreasonable,  self-opinioned,  re- 
sorting to  invective  with  the  ingenious  skill  of  a  lit- 
terateur in  clothing  words  with  novel  applications,  in- 
venting new  epithets  and  misapplying  old  ones. 

In  his  public  utterances  he  deals  in  sounding  phrases 
which  stimulate  the  passions  of  the  popular  majority 
against  the  well-to-do  classes.  He  does  not  so  much  look 
forward  to  remedies  as  backward  to  faults  and  punish- 
ments for  errors  of  the  past.  No  admirer  of  his  person- 
ality ever  thought  him  a  prudent  statesman  or  a  calm,  ju- 
dicious interpreter  of  the  law.  Dogmatic  in  his  impulsive 
judgments,  dictatorial  to  courts,  juries,  legislature  and 
conventions,  fond  of  oratory  and  popular  apnlause,  he 
seems  always  to  seek  the  glare  of  the  limelight  on  the 
public  stage  as  well  as  in  the  retirement — if  he  ever  re- 
tires— of  his  home,  where  he  submits  to  the  camera  and 
has  portrayed  his  skill  as  a  horseman,  a  woodsman,  a 
hunter  of  beasts  and  birds  and,  as  he  is,  a  most  excellent 
father  of  a  large  family! 

He  is  picturesque  as  a  soldier  in  rough  rider  costume, 
as  a  horseman  leaping  fences,  a  hunter  following  the 
hounds,  chasing  lions  and  bears;  in  all  manly  sports 
he  is  a  spectacular  example. 

His  courage  no  one  doubts;  in  the  field,  council  cham- 
ber or  on  the  platform  he  is  ever  the  principal  figure, 
bold,  emphatic,  full  of  violent  gesture,  irrepressible,  .it- 
tractive  to  the  multitude — to  the  thoughtful  unsafe!  He 
brooks  no  interference,  seeks  no  advice,  sends  his  chief 
councillors  abroad  at  critical  times,  surrounds  himself 
only  by  councils  of  young  men  who  listen  and  are  either 
silent  or  meekly  acquiesce  in  his  determinations,  or  whose 
murmurings  of  dissent  are  whispers  or  asides,  of  no 
weight  with  him  or  the  public.  Indeed,  he  assumes  to  be 
and  is  the  "entire  show."  Those  who  differ  from  him 
or  do  not  approve  all  his  methods  he  promptly  classes 
as  "his  enemies." 

It  is  in  a  measure  unjust  to  Mr.  Roosevelt  to  assert 
that  he  is  the  unique  cause  of  it  all;  but  it  is  undeniable 


415 

that  he  has  been  and  is  an  important  factor  in  the  grave 
concern  which  pervades  all  honest  business  enterprises 
and  industries  from  one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other. 
He  started  the  fire  which  has  reached  the  condition  of 
conflagration;  has  added  fuel  to  the  flames,  instead  of 
trying  to  confine  them  to  proper  limits,  by  reiterated 
denunciations  and  unnecessary  threats. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  may  believe  honestly  that  our  national, 
commercial  and  domestic  sins  can  be  expiated  only 
through  suffering  and  distress  and  that  he  is  an  apostle 
who  is  only  fulfilling  a  mission.  Will  not  a  tired  people 
prefer  more  moderation  and  less  absolutism  for  a  few 
years  and  cry  out  for  rest?  He  is  credited  with  being 
instrumental  in  giving  peace  to  warring  nations  of  the 
Old  World;  why  should  he  stir  up  dissensions  at  home? 
A  pacificator  builds  a  more  enduring  monument  than  an 
agitator.  Of  the  former  we  have  too  few,  of  the  latter 
too  many.  But  a  President-Agitator,  however  sincere,  is 
dangerous  to  every  interest,  great  or  small,  to  every 
citizen,  rich  or  poor.  The  dinner  pail  was  full  when  he 
came  into  power;  will  the  owners  of  empty  ones  rise  up 
and  accuse  him  for  the  emptiness  when  he  appeals  to 
them  again?  That  is  the  question  his  well  wishers  are 
hoping  he  will,  if  possible,  consider  calmly,  even  though 
he  disregards  the  innocent  victims  of  his  crusade  against 
the  comparatively  few  "wealthy  malefactors." 

For  the  moment  Mr.  Roosevelt  is  wisely  silent,  perhaps 
astounded  at  the  weight  given  his  oratorical  effusions  at 
home  and  abroad,  and  alarmed  at  their  effect  upon  honest 
enterprise  and  the  strength  they  add  to  the  schemes  of 
the  turbulent  dissatisfied  or  unruly  elements  of  our  com- 
plex society.  We  cannot  expect  him  to  retract  or  recede 
from  "My  Policies,"  but  beg  that  he  will  not  indulge  in 
renewed  and  unnecessary  explanations  of  them.  We  fullj 
understand  him  and  them.  That  for  a  time  he  may  keep 
on  the  conservative  side  of  silence  and  permit  the  country 
to  work  out  its  own  salvation  through  its  courts  and  con- 
stitutional methods,  uninfluenced  by  his  forcible  rhetoric, 
ex  parte  judgments  and  the  opinions  of  youthful,  inex- 
perienced detective  commissioners,  is  now  the  prayer  of 
the  whole  country. 

AN  ADMIRER  OF  MR.  ROOSEVELT. 

New  York,  November  13. 

Now,  your  Honors,  we  submit  that  this  is  a  fair 
and  just  estimate  of  Mr.  Koosevelt;  and  that  all 
those  who  have  heads  to  think,  after  seeing  him 
illuminate  the  nation  for  the  better  part  of 
eight  years,  agree  with  this  writer  that  he  is  "at- 
tractive to  the  multitude — to  the  thoughtful  un- 
safe;" and  we  cannot  but  wonder  why  it  is  possi- 
ble that  this  sober  nation,  after  all  it  has  suffered, 


416 

can  listen  to  third  term  talk  without  downright 
sickness  at  the  stomach.  AVhy,  your  Honors,  the 
woods  are  full  of  crooked  sticks!  Why  should  we 
take  just  this  one,  rather  than  ten  thousand  others 
that,  though  not  exactly  straight,  are  a  good  deal 
more  straight  than  the  one  we  are  leaning  on?  We 
think  the  only  thing  which  explains  this1  is  the  grip 
the  President  has  on  Congressmen  through  his  Big 
Stick  and  his  press-agency.  They  are  all  afraid 
of  him.  At  heart  none  of  them  loves  him. 

But,  your  Honors,  why  choose  a  crooked  stick  at 
all?  If  the  woods  are  full  of  crooked  sticks,  they 
are  also  full  of  straight  ones.  It  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  we  have  at  least  a  thousand  hank  presi- 
dents in  this  country,  so  broad,  so  intelligent,  so 
true,  and  so  discreet  that  either  of  them  would 
make  the  most  practical  president  in  the  world. 
The  same  thing  could  he  said  of  our  great  captains 
of  industry;  and  of  our  merchant  princes,  who  have 
not  been  corrupted  by  foreign  trade  and  the  finding 
of  treasures  in  foreign  markets  instead  of  our  own 
market  here. 

And  yet  the  politicians  are  saying,  "Mr.  Roose- 
velt can  have  the  delegation  from  my  State  if  he 
wants  it.  If  he  does  not,  Mr.  Taft  is  our  second 
choice."  Why,  your  Honors,  these  people  are  the 
chattels  of  the  Roosevelt  administration.  When 
they  speak,  it  is  a  graphophone  running  off  a  Roose- 
velt record. 

How  shrewdly,  your  Honors,  has  Mr.  Roosevelt 
joined  his  labors  for  these  wily  plaintiffs  with  la- 
bors for  himself!  With  the  passage  of  time,  your 
Honors,  this  amazing  alliance  between  business  and 
politics  will  be  apparent.  When  the  glint  and  the 
gleam,  the  sparkle  and  twinkle,  the  sizzle  and  fiz- 
zle, the  swish  and  the  boom,  have  died  away  and 


417 

left  only  bitter  smoke  behind;  when  the  glamour 
has  turned  to  gloaming;  when  the  glory  and  the 
glare  have  faded  to  tAvilight  stars,  the  hour  for 
thought  will  have  come,  and  the  American  people 
will  learn  the  truth  of  the  saga,  "Persistent  adver- 
tising pays;"  and  that  "persistent  advertising" 
markets  quack  men  as  well  as  quack  medicines. 
They  will  then  remember  that  wre  have  had  Presi- 
dents who  have  lived  and  left  their  foot-prints  on 
the  sands  of  time,  without  the  agony  of  great  pub- 
licity; who  "seen  their  duty  and  done  it"  with  their 
right  hand  without  tattling  to  their  left.  They  will 
remember  that  all  branches  of  our  Government  as 
well  as  our  private  business  have,  in  the  main,  al- 
ways been  run  by  honest  men;  and  they  will  come 
to  know  once  more  that  honesty  is  a  condition  of 
living  at  all,  and  that  people  are  as  honest  or  as 
dishonest  as  their  necessities,  and  that  in  Govern- 
ment as  well  as  in  private  life,  their  necessities 
make  the  vast  majority  of  men  and  women  honest. 
They  will  recollect,  when  the  spell  has  passed,  that 
honesty  is  no  curio ;  that  Mr.  Eoosevelt  did  not  dis- 
cover it,  and  that  if  it  is  new  to  him,  it  is  no  nov- 
elty to  the  rest  of  the  world.  They  will  recollect 
that  other  Presidents,  without  sounding  the  bugle 
horn  for  the  advance,  thought  it  a  matter  of  course 
to  clean  house  quietly  all  the  time;  and  if  the  ex- 
ception to  the  rule  of  honesty  was  perchance  dis- 
covered and  dishonesty  in  the  Government  or  in 
the  act  of  some  individual  or  corporation  answer- 
able to  national  law  was  found  to  rear  its  horrid 
head,  without  any  fury  or  fireworks,  to  let  the  calm 
and  non-flamboyant  law  take  its  orderly  course. 
There  was  no  advertisement;  no  heroics;  no  red 
fire.  And  then  they  will  wonder  how  so  simple 
and  natural  a  thing  as  the  honest  running  down  of 


dishonesty  could  have  ever  been  used  for  an  adver- 
tising hullaballoo.  They  will  be  ashamed  that  they 
ever  should  have  seen  morality  in  pyrotechnics. 
And  they  will  be  struck  by  the  contrast  between 
the  ways  of  the  sincere  and  single-hearted  patriot 
and  other  ways  that  they  have  noted;  between  the 
smooth  and  noiseless  apprehension  of  "wrong-do- 
ers" and  their  proper  punishment,  whether  they  be 
rich  or  poor,  and  the  piff ,  bang,  boom !  with  which 
dishonesty  is  laid  low  when  the  hearts  of  the  faith- 
ful need  a  new  firing  in  fealty.  And  then  will  the 
sobered  second  thought  of  the  people  think  of  this 

MISE  EN  SCENE. 

Act  I.  Store  of  advertising  matter  running 
low.  Great  lack  of  a  new  sensation.  The  sum- 
moning of  the  "cuckoos'."  Conference  of  the  only 
just.  Stage  in  sombre  twilight — Gotterdam- 
erung!  The  awful  hero  approaches  in  all  the 
panoply  of  war,  rough-riding  the  yieldless  shards. 
Stage  sinks  into  the  blackness  of  darkness. 
Thunder  in  the  distance.  Flashes  of  oncoming 
lightning.  Away  off  somewhere  a  horn  blows. 

Act  II.  Stage  brightens.  Scent  of  dishonesty 
thought  to  be  found,  while  angels  weep  in  the 
flies.  Cornet  prelude.  Rising  animation. 
Hose-colored  calcium.  Hope. 

Act  III.  Combat  deepens.  The  brave  rush  on. 
Dishonesty  seen  in  headlong  flight  for  the  tall 
timber.  Hounds  in  full  cry.  Rough  Riders1 
trampling  the  grass  everywhere.  Stage  in  white- 
light  illumination.  Trombone  chorus.  Great 
expectations. 

Act  IV.  Battle  rages.  Victory  perches,  and 
unperches  and  reperches.  Dishonesty  brought 


119 

to  bay  just  this  side  of  the  tall  timber.  Delight 
of  the  hounds.  Transports  of  the  Hough  Riders. 
Angels  in  flies  laugh  outright.  Grand  pell-mell 
scrimmage.  Great  victory  of  The-Thousand-to- 
One-Rough-Riding-Brigade.  Dishonesty  given  the 
coup  de  yrace,  and  Teddy  the  brush.  Orchestra 
thunders. 

Act  V.  Grand  looking-glass  scene.  Rough 
Riders  all  admire  themselves.  More  clouds  and 
darkness.  Thunder  rolls.  Lightning  forks 
through  the  foreground.  More  awful  majesty  of 
hero.  Foodie-foodie  of  all  the  bass  horns.  A 
million  bass  drums  boom,  boom,  bum  in  earth- 
quaking unison.  Tom-toms  crash.  Cornets  spit 
crackling  fire.  Majesty  of  law  vindicated.  Daz- 
zling triumph.  Grand  illumination  in  blood  red. 
Ready  Teddy  ready  for  another  stumping  tour. 
The  cuckoo  chorus1  diminuendo  to  curtain. 

BEFORE  THE  CURTAIN. 

THE  POET:  The  glimmer,  the  glint  and  the 
gleam.  The  twinkle  and  crinkle.  The  shimmer 
and  shiver  and  shine.  The  glow  and  the  glare 
and  the  glory.  The  red-fire,  the  white-fire,  the 
blue-fire.  The  red  and  the  white  and  the  blue. 
The  bing,  the  bang  and  the  boom  !!!!!!!!!!! 

THE  PEEPUL:  Oh!  Oh!  !  Oh!  !  O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o 


O  Prince  of  Advertisers,  with  thy  royal  flush, 
take  the  pot!  Thou  scoopest  the  deck!  Compared 
with  thy  shining  talent,  that  of  him  who  paints 
"SAPOLIO"  on  Niagara's  rainbow,  or  on  the  face 
of  the  silver  moon  will  be  but  a  fire-fly's  glow  in 
the  sun's  full  noonday  glare! 

For  putting   the   matter   tin's   way,   we   may    !•<> 


420 

called  by  a  shorter  and  uglier  word.  But,  never- 
theless, this  is  the  way  it  seems  to  us. 

But  he  did  a  lot  of  good,  didn't  he?  What  good, 
your  Honors?  What  good  did  he  really  try  to  do 
except  for  himself? 

He  had  a  keen  conscience,  had  he  not?  Ah, 
your  Honors,  conscience  often  gilds  golden  the 
blackest  infamy.  The  burglar  has  conscience — to 
do  his  job  thoroughly,  to  take  the  last  coin  from 
the  till;  the  last  spoon  from,  the  side-board.  Con- 
science, subordinate  to  self-glory  and  combative- 
ness,  is  a  hulking  hypocrite. 

He  was  humane,  was  he  not?  Not  so  you  would 
notice  it ;  not  humane  enough  to  keep  his  hunt  from 
Louisiana  swamps  and  his  dogs  from  the  dooryards 
of  his  four-footed  fellow  mortals;  not  humane 
enough  to  spare  the  aged  and  innocent  Tyner;  not 
humane  enough  to  prevent  the  damning  on  thin  sus- 
picion of  a  whole  battalion  of  blacks;  not  humane 
enough  not  to  jump  on  the  offenseless  and  defense- 
less Jehu;  not  humane  enough  to  hold  his  ruthless 
hands  from  private  citizen  Long;  not  humane 
enough  not  to  use  his  power  to  dismiss  steamboat 
inspectors  to  injure  and  disgrace  a  Nieholls,  whose 
innocence  was  protested  by  thirty  eye-witnesses  and 
whose  only  accuser  was  the  President;  not  humane 
enough  to  leave  undone  a  single  act  which  might 
swell  his  own  glory  from  the  leveling  of  his  maga- 
zine rifle  at  the  hides  of  Louisiana  bears  to  the 
leveling  of  a  German  Agreement  at  the  hearts  and 
homes  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  his  fellow  citi- 
zens. Humane,  your  Honors!  Why,  many  a  sav- 
age sachem  is  just  as  humane.  The  Emperor  of 
Abyssinia  is1  just  as  much  so.  Mr.  Roosevelt  spares 
neither  man  nor  beast  in  his  lust  and  riot  for  sen- 
sational satisfaction,  whether  it  be  urged  by  his  bat- 


421 

tie-brain-cells  or  those  which  push  a  man  towards 
vain-glory.  He  mows  down  like  grass  men  who 
stand  in  his  way.  The  industries  of  the  nation  have 
no  warrant  for  living  against  his  desire  to  be  tick- 
led by  the  German  Emperor.  To  sate  his  love  of 
praise,  and  without  a  qualm  of  conscience  or  of 
sympathy,  ho  crashes  into  the  industrial  structures 
which  sustain  the  life  of  the  people.  He  runs 
amuck  with  swinging  bludgeon  among  the  crowd 
of  moneyed  men  upon  whose  shoulders  our  financial 
and  industrial  welfare  rest,  yelling  with  each  mur- 
derous blow,  "Malefactors  of  great  wealth!  Very 
rich  wrong-doers!''  while  values  melt  oy  the  hun- 
dreds of  millions  like  ice  in  a  July  sun  and  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  small  investors  are  despoiled 
of  their  all.  He  breathes  from  his  fire-belching 
nostrils  slaughter  and  threatenings1  of  slaughter 
against  all  property  rights,  and  rends  the  founda- 
tions of  the  nation's  whole  business  life.  And  all 
in  the  name  of  righteousness !  Ay,  your  Honors,  in 
the  name  of  righteousness  he  scatters  withering 
havoc  like  a  pestilential  blast  and  sounds  the  loud 
summons  of  his  Rough-Riding  clans  to  the  devo- 
tion of  a  holy  war.  All  in  the  name  of  righteous- 
ness, your  Honors!  And  is  he  righteous;  and  is 
his  war  a  holy  war?  He  is  as  righteous  as  any 
other  fanatic,  your  Honors,  who  maketh  his  meat 
by  righteousness;  and  his  war  is  as  holy  as  any 
other  war  waged  to  assemble  a  fanatical  following. 
His  war  is  at  least  as  holy  as  those  of  the  whirling 
dervishes  and  Mad  Mullahs  of  the  Orient — just  so 
holy  and  no  holier  is  the  righteousness  and  the  Avar 
of  this  whirling  dervish,  this  Mad  Mullah  of  the 
Occident. 

Oh,  idol  of  the  people,  clay-wrought  by  the  very 
mob    which    doth    thee    reverence!      Oh,    king   of 


422 

masquerades !  Usthiuks  that  oft  behind  thy  mask, 
with  the  inextinguishable  laughter  of  the  demi- 
gods, thou  chortlest  softly  to  thyself,  "Ah,  indeed 
and  indeed,  what  fools  these  mortals  be!" 

[At  this  point  iii  counsel's  argument  a  group  of 
cuckoos  and  Roosevelt  Congressmen,  perched  on 
the  back  benches,  hissed,  groaned,  and  cried  "What 
rot!"  The  Presiding  Judge  directed  the  court  offi- 
cer to  arrest  the  "wrong-doers,"  but  counsel  for  de- 
fendant intervened  in  their  behalf.] 

DEFENDANT'S  COUNSEL:  We  trust,  your  Honors, 
that  you  will  be  lenient  with  these  disturbers.  They 
had  to  do  it.  The  "cuckoos"  would  have  fluttered 
from  their  White  House  perch  with  worse  than 
broken  wings;  and  the  Congressmen  who  hold  their 
official  leases  from  Mr.  Eoosevelt  would  have  been 
dispossessed,  had  they  not  gone  on  record  here  as 
disapproving  criticism  of  Mr.  Koosevelt,  profanely 
connecting  him  with  these  wily  plaintiffs.  But, 
your  Honors,  we  think  they  will  be  good  now,  if 
they  remain.  Having  saved  their  respective  records 
and  necks,  they  will  have  no  further  occasion  for 
disorder. 

THE  PRESIDING  JUDGE  :  On  the  statement  of  coun- 
sel, the  offenders  may  remain  without  arrest.  But 
the  disorder  must  not  be  repeated.  Counsel  will 
please  proceed. 

DEFENDANT'S  COUNSEL  (Resuming)  :  Your  Hon- 
ors, what  "malefactor  of  great  wealth"  could  do 
greater  wrong  to  his  country  than  has  been  done 
and  is  yet  being  done  by  Mr.  Roosevelt?  With  hiss 
special  appointees  doing  his  will  in  pointing  to  the 
profits  of  great  corporations  as  evidence  of  crime; 
with  all  this  systematic  persecution  of  those  who 


423 

have  acquired  property,  because  of  its  being  ac- 
quired, not  by  robbery,  your  Honor,  but  in  the  ways 
which  have  always  been  and  still  are  counted  as 
the  usual  and  honorable  ways  of  acquiring  property 
and  which  are  never  questioned  when  employed  by 
men  who  have  not  come  under  Mr.  Roosevelt's  con- 
demnation or  who  are  so  fortunate  as  to  be  consid- 
ered by  him  as  "malefactors  of  little  wealth ;"  with 
his  ready  appeal  to  the  public  against  "a  conspiracy 
of  ric'h  men;"  and  his  unceasing  stigma  upon  prop- 
erty as  the  mark  and  sign  of  depravity;  with  all 
this  and  with  the  constant  clatter  of  weak  minds 
in  the  newspaper  world,  denouncing  as  "robbery" 
all  large  profits  no  matter  how  honestly  or  in  what 
orderly  way  acquired,  what  is  to  become  of  prop- 
erty rights  in  this  country,  and  how  is  a  body  to 
know  when  he  will  be  lauded  as  a  "poor  man"  or 
pinched  as  a  "malefactor  of  great  wealth?"  Is  there 
any  ear-mark,  your  Honors,  by  which  property  may 
be  known  as  "legitimate"  or  "illegitimate"  and  in 
the  one  case  retained  for  one's  own  use  and  in  the 
other  abandoned  to  some  politician's  campaign 
fund?  Have  all  our  rules  of  conduct  been  changed, 
your  Honors,  and  by  the  application  of  the  Roose- 
velt rule  are  we  all  now  but  a  den  of  thieves? 

Are  we  to  suffer  domieilary  visitation  by  the  tith- 
ing man  of  any  political  party  that  happens  to  be 
fit  the  head  of  things?  Must  we  make  humble  con- 
fession of  all  our  doings  in  business,  to  let  our 
blackmailing  tormentor  judge  whether  or  not  our 
profits  have  been  "legitimate?"  Are  we  to  be 
mulcted  in  our  property  whenever  the  Chief  Magis- 
trate has  need  of  a  little  more  public  furor  in  order 
to  carry  him  into  a  second  term  of  office?  Are  we 
to  be  the  goods  and  chattels  of  greatness  in  the 
White  House?  Oh,  your  Honors,  it  really  seems 


424 

so,  when  judges  can  be  appointed  for  the  express 
purpose  of  finding  us  guilty  any  way;  of  refusing 
all  testimony  showing  that  we  were  ignorant  of  the 
facts  alleged  as  our  crime  and  that  we  did  not 
know  we  were  offending  and  had  no  intention  of 
doing  so;  of  shutting  our  mouths  when  we  protest 
that  we  were  only  shipping  goods  at  the  same  rate 
at  which  we  had  shipped  them  over  three  competing 
roads  for  more  than  a  decade;  of  refusing  our  proof 
that  we  had  only  been  guilty  of  taking  a  railroad's 
word  for  the  fact  of  the  legality  of  its  rate ;  and,  to 
crown  all,  of  sending  for  all  our  books  and  figur- 
ing out  our  profits  for  a  dozen  years  to  determine 
whether  we  were  of  the  size  to  be  called  guilty  and 
if  guilty  of  what  size  should  be  our  punishment! 
Oh,  your  Honors,  have  these  wily  plaintiffs,  our 
century-old  parasites,  who  suck  our  blood  and  do 
nothing  else  but  suck  our  blood,  been  so  powerful 
at  Washington  that  they  thus  have  the  power  of 
life  and  death  over  us  all!  Is  American  Produc- 
tion to  be  thus  doomed  and  damned  in  behalf  of 
these  wily  plaintiffs?  And  is  this  the  land  of  ref- 
uge of  the  Puritans  and  the  Pilgrims?  Is  this  the 
place  to  which  we  fled  from  injustice,  from  domicil- 
iary visitations,  from  martyrdom  for  opinion's 
sake,  the  whipping-post,  the  pillory,  the  rack,  the 
boiling  oil,  the  gibbet  and  the  stake!  Is  this  the 
land  of  the  free  and  the  home  of  the  brave!  To 
this  complexion  has  it  come  at  last!  Oh,  Manes 
of  Magna  Charta!  Oh,  shades  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence !  Oh,  shape  of  the  American  Con- 
stitution !  How  hath  your  one-time  mighty  fallen ! 


425 


XXXI 

THESE  WILY  PLAINTIFFS  SHOULD  BE  CONSTITUTION- 
ALLY RESTRAINED  FROM  FURTHER  PREYING  UPON 
THE  BUSINESS  OF  THE  AMERICAN  PEOPLE. 

Your  Honors1,  it  has  hitherto  been  a  haphazard 
life  our  people  have  been  living.  Studiously  have 
these  wily  plaintiffs,  through  their  great  bureaus 
of  information,  our  colleges,  our  editorial  rooms, 
and  our  large  publishing  houses,  cultivated  among 
us  the  doctrine  of  laissez  faire,  -or  "every  man  for 
himself  and  God  help  the  hindmost."  These  sources 
of  authority  have  waved  off  with  grimaces  of  pain 
every  suggestion  that  the  profane  hand  of  science 
should  be  laid  upon  our  economic  affairs  and  from 
the  slip-shod  chaos  of  our  ideas  should  roll  into 
definite  form  a  plan  whereby  our  national  progress1 
in  the  direction  of  universal  happiness  should  be 
made  as  permanent  and  unreversible  as  the  path 
of  the  sun  in  the  sky.  And  in  order  to  beat  us  in 
detail  and  make  us  forever  the  Arcadian  dolts'  of 
their  deceptions,  sheep  to  be  sheared,  cows  to  be 
milked,  geese  to  be  plucked  and  turkies  to  be  bled 
for  their  profit,  these  wily  plaintiffs,  the  Import- 
ing Trust  and  the  Exporting  Trust,  knowing  that 
a  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand,  have 
studiously  tried  to  divide  us;  and  have  poured 
our  ears  full  of  economic  superstitions  exhaling 
such  wraiths  and  bugaboos  that  our  chief  sens*a- 
tion  has  been  that  of  terror  of  each  other,  as  if 
some  of  us  were  rich,  and  others  poor,  some  capi- 
talists and  others1  laborers,  some  producers  and 
others  consumers,  some  "the  Government"  and  the 


420 

rest  "the  common  people;"  with  each  class's  in- 
terests antagonistic  to  those  of  each  of  the  other 
classes. 

On  the  contrary,  your  Honors,  we  know  as  we 
have  before  agreed,  that  in  the  sense  that  any  given 
person  can  belong  to  but  one  of  the  classes1  named 
and  to  that  irrevocably,  there  are  no  classes  what- 
ever in  this  country;  and  that  nobody  is  rich  or 
poor  by  comparing  his  wealth  writh  that  of  others, 
but  only  by  comparing  what  he  really  has  with 
what  he  really  needs.  We  know  that  all  of  us1  act- 
ive, business  people  are  laborers,  whether  we  labor 
in  producing  property  or  wages,  or  whether  we 
labor  in  the  transportation,  distribution,  and  pres- 
ervation of  property;  that,  in  varying  proportions, 
we  all  are  capitalists,  in  muscle,  mind,  and  money, 
and  we  know,  your  Honors1,  that  we  prosper  and 
are  greatest  and  best  in  the  direct  ratio  in  which 
our  wants  are  supplied  by  American  Production; 
that  in  fact  our  progress  and  civilization  are  Ameri- 
can Production  and  wax  and  wane  with  that  Pro- 
duction. For  we  know  that  in  order  that  we  may 
honestly  acquire  a  mass  of  goods  which  will  evenly 
fill  our  whole  increasing  measure  of  wants,  we 
must  have  distributed  to  us  a  volume  of  employ- 
ment exactly  equal  to  our  volume  of  wants;  for 
it  is  our  employment  which  earns  the  supplies 
which  meet  our  necessities1;  and  we  know  that  the 
more  of  this  mass  of  supplies  we  produce  our- 
selves, the  less  we  shall  be  compelled  to  beg,  bor- 
row, or  steal ;  and  the  less  of  it  we  produce  our- 
selves, the  more  we  shall  be  compelled  to  beg,  bor- 
row or  steal;  and  that  when,  at  last,  we  become 
sufficiently  civilized  to  make  the  volume  of  our 
employment  exactly  equal  to  the  volume  of  pro- 
duction required  to  supply  our  needs,  we  shall  have 


become  sufficiently  civilized  never  to  beg,  borrow, 
or  steal  a  cent's  worth  from  anybody. 

And  by  a  short  examination,  we  have  learned 
that  the  only  condition  upon  which  American  Pro- 
duction can  live  is  one  that  will  relieve  capital 
employed  in  this  country  from  the  dilemma  where- 
in it  must  either  be  dissipated  among  the  cheap 
nations  of  the  earth,  or  must  itself  take  time  by 
the  forelock  and  leave  for  some  land  where  the 
index-figure  of  cost  is1  lower  than  'ours;  and  we 
have  drafted  a  law  showing  under  what  conditions 
capital  must  thus  migrate  or  thus  be  dispersed 
to  the  strong  boxes  of  competing  producers.  By 
a  quick  glance  about  us,  we  have  learned  that 
ours1  is  a  cost-100  country  and  that  the  world  out- 
side is  a  cost-20  country;  and  have  realized  that 
unless  we  lay  a  firm  hand  upon  our  own  affairs, 
we  shall  be,  to  the  end  of  time,  the  easy  victim  of 
these  wily  plaintiffs  and  that  by  the  exposure  of 
our  cost-100  market  to  a  cosrt-20  world,  our  wealth 
will  be  snatched  away  as  often  as  we  are  weak 
enough  to  agree  to  such  exposure  by  "tariff  re- 
vision." Now,  your  Honors,  why  should  not  we 
act  the  part  of  rational  beings?  Why  should  not 
wo,  the  real  business  men  of  America,  the  only  ones 
whose  interests  are  identical  with  those  of  the 
whole  country,  we,  the  wage-producers,  the  prop- 
erty-producers, and  the  adjunct-producers,  form- 
ing but  a  single  harmonious  army  under  the  ban- 
ner of  American  Production,  fighting  the  battles 
of  American  Progress1  and  American  Civilization 
against  a  common  enemy  which  ambushes  us  at 
every  point,  the  enemy  which  cuts  off  our  lagging 
columns,  makes  us  captive  and  frequently  sells 
us  into  the  bondage  of  idleness  and  poverty — why 
should  not  we  lay  down  a  definite  course  to  be  pur- 


428 

sued  fov  our  own  protection?  Why  should 
we,  with  a  perfect  knowledge  of  what  ails  us,  and 
with  the  power  to  cast  out  the  ailment,  continue, 
like  the  lower  animals,  to  suffer  century  after  cen- 
tury, without  hope  of  betterment? 

It  seems  to  us1,  your  Honors,  that  our  course  is 
very  plain.  And  we  therefore  move  this  Court  for 
a  perpetual  injunction  against  these  wily  plain- 
tiffs, constituting  as  they  do  the  only  "malefactors 
of  great  wealth"  which  our  country  has  to  fear; 
these  devastators  of  our  firesides,  these  slave-deal- 
ers of  the  twentieth  century,  and  of  all  the  cen- 
turies, your  Honors,  these  allies  against  our 
national  and  individual  lives;  these  parasites,  for 
whom  we  have  so  long  been  the  unhappy  enter- 
taining host  sand  who  have  consolidated  into  the 
wickedest  trust  in  the  world  their  common  inter- 
est in  our  despoiling. 

And,  your  Honors,  in  order  that  this  injunction 
may  endure  against  all  appeal  by  these  wily  plain- 
tiffs; in  order  that  the  coming  generation,  misled 
by  ignorance  of  the  wrongs  inflicted  upon  us  by 
these  wily  plaintiffs,  in  its  inexperience,  its  want 
of  memory,  and  its  un-suspicion,  may  not  be  a  vic- 
tim of  these  wily  plaintiffs',  like  as  we  have  been, 
we  move  that  a  period  for  thought,  for  wide-ex- 
tended debate  and  investigation  be  placed  between 
our  innocent  posterity  and  the  machinations  of 
the  wickedest  trust  in  the  world.  And  the  method 
which  we  shall  propose  of  compelling  a  long  halt 
between  the  first  impulsive  thrill  of  our  after-com- 
ers towards  a  yielding  to  the  seductive  whisper- 
ing of  the  greatest  liar,  thief  and  murderer  that 
ever  damned  the  earth,  and  the  conversion  of  our 
beloved  country  into  a  feeble  fly  to  be  eaten  by 
this  horrid  spider,  the  wickedest  trust  in  the  world, 


429 

is  that  of  a  constitutional  amendment,  making  it 
the  duty  of  Congress,  by  stage  placed  upon  stage, 
to  build  our  tariff-dike  to  the  very  skies,  as  the 
producing  world  outside  ripens  and  becomes  more 
and  more  skillful,  in  all  its  length  and  breadth, 
and  brings  more  and  more  to  bear  upon  produc- 
tion those  mighty  economies  which  the  prodigal 
sun  of  the  tropics'  places  within  the  reach  of  grow- 
ing intelligence;  but  an  amendment  which  cuts  off 
from  Congress  forever,  except  by  unanimous  vote, 
the  power  to  take  from  the  dike  a  single  brick  once 
laid  there,  while  it  gives  the  President  a  veto  power 
for  every  measure  that  might  neutralize  the  effect 
of  the  dike,  and  deprives  him  of  veto  power  for 
any  measure  which  might  further  protect  Ameri- 
can Production;  and  gives  to  Congress  power  to 
levy  duties  on  our  exports,  and  to  each  State  and 
every  section  of  the  country  of  a  certain  size  the 
power  to  constitute  itself  a  zone  of  production, 
whose  products  may  not  go  out  to  other  places, 
and  into  which  products  from  other  places1  may 
not  come  except  upon  the  payment  of  a  certain 
tax. 

And,  your  Honors,  our  amendment  should  cut 
off  from  our  country  all  the  tropical  territory  here- 
tofore acquired  or  controlled  by  it,  and  prohibit 
the  annexation  to  it  of  any  other  territory  what- 
ever not  a  part  of  the  United  States  prior  to  the 
annexation  of  Porto  Rico. 

Our  amendment  should  also  make  German 
Agreements  treasonable;  strip  from  the  President 
the  power  of  appointment  to  any  public  office  what- 
ever except  to  the  cabinet,  lodging  the  same  in  an 
appropriate  Commission ;  make  it  impeachable  for 
the  President  to  summon  legislators  to  him  for 
private  conference  during  the  sessions  of  Congress 


430 

or  to  use  any  influence  whatever  over  Congressmen 
or  Senators;  and  lodge  with  the  Supreme  Court 
the  duty  and  the  power  to  take  cognizance  of  any 
complaint  against  the  President  for  any  such  con- 
ference or  such  influence;  to  hear  the  evidence  ad- 
duced in  support  of  such  complaint  and  enter  its 
decree  thereon  and  through  the  proper  officers  en- 
force the  same. 

It  should  also  enjoin  the  President,  during  his 
term  of  office,  from  public  speechifying  and  com- 
munications to  the  public  prints,  except  his  annual 
message  to  Congress;  and  limit  his  communica- 
tions to  Congress  to  such  annual  message  and  such 
special  messages  thereafter  as  might  be  necessary  to 
explain  the  transmittal  thereto  of  documents  of 
public  interest.  We  should  thus1,  your  Honors,  try 
and  put  an  end  to  all  buttonholing,  bullyragging, 
and  intimidation  on  the  part  of  a  too  strenuous 
Executive. 

But,  your  Honors,  we  would  not  imitate  this 
wickedest  trust  in  the  world,  the  only  real  male- 
factor of  great  wealth  among  us,  and  do  aught 
suddenly  to  destroy  values  and  embarrass  cruelly 
even  this  wickedest  trust  in  the  world;  for  this 
would  be  but  to  follow  the  reckless  and  ruthless 
example  of  this1  wickedest  trust  in  the  world,  which 
by  ia  whirlwind  campaign  against  American  Pro- 
duction as  to  the  "trusts,"  "extorting"  and  "exact- 
ing" from  people  at  home  higher  prices  than  they 
get  abroad,  destroys  American  Production  upon 
a  single  election  day  and  in  an  hour  sets  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  our  people  moving  towards 
untimely  graves.  Xo,  your  Honors,  all  measures 
for  the  destruction  of  this  wickedest  trust  in  the 
world  should  bo  taken  decently  and  in  order.  Ex- 
port tariffs?  should  gradually  cut  off  entirely  the 


431 

wasting  abroad  of  our  substance  in  "raw  mate- 
rials/' whether  in  provisions,  in  grains,  in  fibres, 
in  ores,  or  other  products;  and,  as  gradually,  and 
pari  passu,  cut  oft'  entirely  exports  of  all  manufac- 
tured products ;  while  an  import  tariff,  gradually  in- 
creasing, should  finally  cut  oft'  all  imports  of  what- 
ever nature.  Then  at  last,  would  our  people  come 
by  their  own;  then  would  our  temptation  to  steal 
be  wholly  taken  away,  and  for  every  want  we  had 
there  would  be  given  us  an  opportunity  to  earn 
the  price  of  its  satisfaction  with  the  labor  of  our 
hands  in  the  sweat  of  our  faces  and  at  wages  so 
high  that  our  reward  would  be  far  greater  than 
the  reward  of  stealing.  And  then  the  time  would 
have  arrived,  when,  as  we  said  some  time  ago,  a 
certificate  of  American  citizenship  would  be  a 
ticket  of  admission  which  would  pass  the  bearer 
by  St.  Peter  at  the  gate  without  the  slightest  cross- 
examination. 

Here,  your  Honors1,  at  the  close  of  our  argument, 
we  repeat  what  we  began  with,  that  sane  people 
do  not  do  cruel  things  for  the  love  of  being  cruel. 
Even  these  wily  plaintiffs  are  not  moved  in  their 
respective  orbits  by  malice.  They  are  looking  for 
pleasure  and  running  away  from  pain — just  as 
we  all  are  trying  to  do.  But  unhappily  they  and 
their  connections  in  all  countries  and  at  all  times 
can  live  and  flourish  only  by  the  despoiling  of 
those  with  whom  they  deal.  Every  country,  for 
instance,  has  its  Importing  Trust,  that  only  can 
thrive  by  selling  the  jobs  of  wage-producers  there 
to  speculators  in  other  countries;  and  its  Export- 
ing Trust  whose  welfare  depends  upon  the  exhaus- 
tion of  the  natural  stores  of  the  country  in  which 
it  operates  and  selling  them  at  low  competitive 
prices  in  other  countries.  The  Importing  Trust 


432 

robs,  workers  of  wages  and  stifles  life;  and  the 
Exporting  Trust  robs  workers  of  natural  stores 
which  would  make  life  easier  to  bear.  Let  both 
the  Importing  Trust  and  the  Exporting  Trust  prey 
upon  a  country  at  the  same  time,  and  for  the  wage- 
producer  you  have  let  loose  what  General  Sherman 
said  war  was.  The  Importing  Trust  makes  wages 
fall  and  the  Exporting  Trust  makes  prices  rise. 
The  Importing  Trust  makes  work  scarce  and  dear ; 
and  the  Exporting  Trust  makes  necessaries  scarce 
and  dear.  The  one  deprives  us  of  work;  the  other 
of  goods.  As  the  chances  to  earn  money  get  fewer 
and  fewer,  and  a  man  must  give  more  and  more 
of  himself  in  exchange  for  them,  the  store  of  goods 
gets  smaller  and  smaller  and  a  man  gets  less  and 
less  of  them  for  the  money  he  earns.  It  is  double 
destruction  your  Honors,  for  the  candle  of  your 
life  is  burning  away  at  both  ends.  You  give  more 
and  more  of  your  blood  and  muscle,  nerve  and 
brain,  to  get  hold  of  a  dollar,  and  more  and  more 
of  your  dollars  to  get  back  what  will  restore  your 
blood  and  muscle,  nerve  and  brain.  The  Import- 
ing Trust  leaves  you  with  less  and  less  of  life;  and 
the  Exporting  Trust  makes  you  give  up,  in  trying 
to  save  the  remnant,  still  more  of  the  little  life  that 
is  left  you. 

You  can  never  come  by  your  own  until 
you  keep  out  the  foreign  supply  and  keep  in  your 
own.  But  if  you  dam  out  foreign  supply,  you 
down  the  Importing  Trust;  and  if  you  dam  in 
American  supply,  you  down  the  Exporting  Trust. 
But  both  of  these  trusts,  these  wily  plaintiffs, 
must  be  downed,  if  we,  the  wage-producers  and 
business  men  of  this  country,  are  to  be  less  than 
the  slaves  of  the  wily  plaintiffs ;  for  both  of  these 
trusts  make  their  profits  from  selling  our  civili- 


433 

zation,  and  by  putting  us  more  and  more  at  their 
mercy  and  making  our  lives  and  our  forward  march 
secondary  to  their  commissions.  The  evil  of  for- 
eign commerce  is  becoming  greater  and  greater 
with  the  passing  months.  What  does  the  great 
Lusitania  mean,  your  Honors?  What  do  all  these 
great  ocean  steamships  mean,  your  Honors? 
What  means  the  declaration  that  more  Lusitanias, 
or  boats  even  greater  than  she,  are  soon  to  be  built, 
your  Honors'?  Merely  that  the  wage-producers 
of  this  country  are  to  be  put  up  at  auction  more 
and  more;  that  their  jobs  are  to  be  taken  from 
them  more  and  more,  and  more  and  more  of  those 
jobs  sold  to  people  abroad  who  will  bid  more 
blood  and  muscle,  nerve  and  brain,  for  the  same 
number  of  dollars  that  the  wage-producer  here 
now  receives.  It  means  that,  while  he  is  giving 
more  and  more  of  his  body  and  brain  to  earn  a 
dollar,  he  is  going  to  get  less  and  less  goods  for 
his  dollar.  It  means  that  both  of  these  wily  plain- 
tiffs are  going  to  let  out  another  reef  in  their  pirate 
sails  in  order  to  overtake  and  pillage  more  quickly 
the  great  ship  American  Prosperity. 

This  is  what  the  English  Importing  and  Export- 
ing Trusts  are  now  doing  by  English  wage-work- 
ers, your  Honors.  For  the  counterparts  of  these 
wily  plaintiffs  in  England,  your  Honors,  own  and 
run  that  unhappy  country.  Wage-producers  there 
are  slaves1  of  the  English  Importing  and  Export- 
ing Trusts,  who  are  the  English  Government,  the 
English  nobility  and  landed  gentry.  The  British 
Islands  are  all  whittled  down  to  the  fine  point  of 
commercial  profit  for  their  grandees  and  wealthy 
trading  classes;  while, the  British  wage-producing 
people  are  bartered  like  cattle  for  the  gain  of  their 
commercialists.  All  skies  are  darkened  with  the 


434 

smoke  of  British, ships  carrying  away  the  products 
of  those  unhappy  islands,  made  by  the  bloody  sweat 
of  their  workers,  made  by  coining  the  bodies  and 
souls  of  ^English  artisans,  made  by  the  sapping  of 
the  vitals  and  the  sucking  away  of  the  energies 
of  a  once  great  nation,  to  pawn  in  foreign  shops 
for  the ,  wherewithal  to  continue  British  nabobs  in 
their  lives  of  wasteful  pleasure;  and  with  the 
smoke  of  those  same  ships,  bearing  back  to  Eng- 
land the  goods  which, destroy  employment  and  the 
manhood  of  British  workmen  by  the  tens  of  thou- 
sands. To  continue  this  process  of  appalling  waste, 
the  English  ,navy  must  be  maintained  to  protect 
her  foreign  trade,  at  an  annual  cost  alone  which 
"staggers  humanity."  And  just  this,  your  Honors, 
is  what  these  wily  plaintiffs  will  bring  us  Ameri- 
cans to  if  we  don't  watch  out.  Ah,  your  Honors  all 
international  trade  is  but  ancient  piracy  in  modern 
clothes.  But,  your  Honors,  still  with  malice  to- 
wards none  but  charity  for  all,  we  say  ,this  thing. 
These  wily  plaintiffs,  you,  and  we,  and  all  of  us, 
are  merely  phenomena  of  .nature;  we  are  all  the 
outcome  of  environment,  of  sheer  necessity.  Even 
our  own  property-producers  are  the  offspring  of 
adamantine  circumstance.  They  are  with  us  be- 
cause the  soil  for  their  growth  here  is  kind.  They 
will  not  leave  us  if  we  fertilize  the  soil  with  con- 
ditions1 that  make  for  profit  to  discreet  and  in- 
telligent management.  If  we  destroy  our  tariff- 
dike,  or  even  "revise"  it  at  all  downward,  we  will 
lower  wages  and  raise  prices.  But  .if  we  raise  it 
higher  and  higher,  we  shall  raise  wages  and  lower 
prices — in  the  long  run.  If  wages  fall,  it  will 
be  because  our  wage-producers1  are  out  of  work 
and  so  of  money  and  so  of  power  to  patronize  our 
property-producers;  and  all  this  will  be  for  the 


435 

reason  that  our  property-producers  cannot  em- 
ploy our  wage-producers  because  foreign  imports 
are  taking  away  their  domestic  market;  and  when 
this  happens1,  our  property-producers  too,  must 
show  the  same  servility  to  circumstance  which 
rules1  us  all ;  they  must  go  away  from  us,  in  accord- 
ance with  our  law,  ,and  seek  the  area  of  cheapest 
production  for  this  market;  and  that  never  can 
be  here. 

But  ,your  Honors,  to  make  here  an  environment 
wholesome  for  the  property-producer,  upon  whose 
activities  we  all  depend,  lies1  with  our  property -pro- 
ducers themselves,  with  our  wage-producers  and 
our  adjunct-producers1;  with  the  .business  men  of 
this  country,  the  farmers,  the  merchants  and  manu- 
facturers, the  builders  of  railoads,  bridges,  and 
houses,  and  those  who  furnish  and  fit  them  for  our 
wage-producers.  For  our  property-producers',  our 
wage-producers  and  our  adjunct  producers,  who  are 
the  merchants  who  sell  our  wage-producers  their 
necessaries  of  life,  and  all  the  great  railroads  and 
steamship  and  other  lines  that  take  care  of  the 
carrying  and  delivering  to  our  wage-producers  of 
the  goods  of  our  farmers,  manufacturers,  and  mer- 
chants, are  in  an  overwhelming  majority ;  and  they 
are  not  only  numerous  enough  to  ordain  here  by 
transient  congressional  enactments,  an  environ- 
ment in  which  property-production  must  flourish; 
but  numerous  enough  to  make  the  whole  country's 
business  stable  in  perpetuo  by  the  constitutional 
amendments  which  we  have  heretofore  hinted  at. 
They  only  need  to  take  hold  all  together,  and  the 
country  will  be  saved  from  further  spoliation  by 
these  wily  plaintiffs1. 

And  our  President  also,  he  who  has  wrought  so 
masterfully  to  further  thes'o  wily  plaintiffs  in  their 


436 

dire  purposes  against  the  savings  fund  of  this  coun- 
try, is  like  the  rest  of  us,  a  creature  of  environment. 
He  does  as  he  must,  pushed  on  by  his1  brain-cells 
over  which  he  has  no  control..  His  conscience 
brain-cells  are  large  and  promising,  but  still  so 
subordinate  to  the  brain-cells  that  preside  over 
fighting  and  vain-glory  that  he  thinks  what  he  does 
for  his  own  glory  is  done  from  a  high  sense  of  duty ! 
Oh,  your  Honors,  "Wad  some  power  the  giftie  gie 
us  to  see  oursels  as  ithers  see  us!"  But  with  the 
proper  change  of  environment,  there  is  hope  for 
the  President  also.  And  let  us  all  hope  and  rev- 
erently pray  that  the  American  people  may  see 
their  way  clear  to  furnish  that  change ! 

Finally,  your  Honors,  the  .gradual  snuffing  out 
of  these  wily  plaintiffs,  composing  this  "trust" 
whose  tentacles,  octupus-like,  hold  in  their  wither- 
ing and  wizzening  grasp  the  production  of  the 
world,  would  merge  the  great  question  of  business 
stability,  the  great  question  of  the  equitable  dis- 
tribution of  wealth,  the  relation  of  capital  and 
labor,  and  the  great  issue  of  socialism  into  one  and 
would  solve  all  these  riddles  at  once.  For  with 
the  American  ,  demand  religiously  confined  to  the 
American  supply;  and  the  American  supply  as  re- 
ligiously confined  to  the  American  demand,  busi- 
ness would  be  as1  eternally  stable  as  the  recurring 
daily  needs  of  all  our  people;  work  would  be  as 
abundant  as  the  flood  of  our  wants  requiring  work 
to  satisfy  them ;  and  by  the  rising  of  wrages  through 
the  competition  of  property-producers'  for  the  wage- 
producer,  on  the  one  hand ;  and  the  falling  of  prices 
through  the  competition  of  property-producers 
for, our  market,  on  the  other  hand,  the  whole  pro- 
duct of  the  wage-producers  would  be  more  and  more 
widely  and  equitably  distributed,  without  ham- 


437 

stringing  initiative  and  ambition  by  an  arbitary 
sharing  of  the  rewards  of  labor. 

Yes,  your  Honors,  all  things  coine  to  him  who 
works'  for  fair  wages.  Our  gospel  is  that  found 
in  the  Holy  Scripture  of  Work.  The  Gospel  of 
Work  is  more  holy  than  that  preached  by  any  evan- 
gel from  the  dark  land  of  superstition;  for  it  is 
only  in  the  soil  prepared  by  abundant  and  well- 
paid  Work  that  Morality,  Education,  and  true  Re- 
ligion can  grow  to  their  highest  estate. 

And  if  your  Honors  but  grant  to  your  petitioner, 
the  defendant  in  this1  action,  all  the  matters  and 
things  enumerated  and  described  herein,  your  peti- 
tioner will  ever  pray. 


Gentle  Reader,  we  are  not  a  "conspiracy  of  rich 
men,"  and  we  have  not  back  of  us,  to  beat  "my 
policies,"  a  five-million-dollar  corruption  fund. 
We  are  only  a  humble  citizen  feeling  many  things 
and  saying  but  very  few.  For  aught  we  know, 
we  are  an  undesirable  citizen. 

It  seems  to  us  that  matters  are  a  good  deal  mix- 
ed up  in  the  way  we  are  doing  things  and  let- 
ting things  and  politicians  do  us.  We  ought  to 
stroke  the  fur  the  right  way  in  this  world;  and 
we  ought  to  stroke  a  man  in  the  direction  of  his 
brain-cells.  We  ought  never  to  expect  a  man  to 
do  the  right  thing  except  we  stroke  his  brain-cells 
in  the  right  direction.  If  we  do  we  shall  spoil 
his  fur  and  he  will  spoil  ours. 


438 

Now,  gentle  reader,  it  is  wrong  to  worship  our 
own  brain-cells  any  more  than  we  worship  the 
brain-cells  of  others.  For  we  are  all  just  bud- 
gets of  brain-cells  over  which  we  have  absolutely 
no  control.  They  will  beat  us  every  time  and  the 
biggest  bunch  will  always  be  on  top.  But  other 
people  can  mold  our  brain-cells  to  fit  new  environ- 
ments; and  we  can  mold  other  people's  brain- 
cells  to  fit  new  environments.  Or,  rather,  just  as 
Jacob  did  with  the  heifers,  we  can  shrewdly  cook 
up  an  environment  that,  in  God's  good  time,  will 
mold  the  brain-cells  of  others  so  that  they  will 
fit  the  new  environment;  and  if  we  contrive  that 
environment  to  suit  us,  the  new  arrangement  of 
brain-cells  will  suit  us,  too, — and  the  heifers  will 
be  colored  so  that  they  will  belong  to  us.  Jacob 
only  anticipated  our  philosophy  by  some  thousands 
of  years.  He  was  the  shrewd  forefather  of  a  shrewd 
and  careful  race  of  business  men  who  will  surely 
understand  our  philosophy,  and,  we  think,  help  us 
to  inculcate  it. 

To  point  the  moral  and  adorn  the  tale,  we  ought 
to  surround  our  public  servants  with  environ- 
ments that  will  move  their  brain-cells  into  harmony 
with  our  interests.  Now,  an  environment  that 
will  make  their  honest  brain-cells  more  powerful 
than  their  dishonest  ones,  is  one  which  would  sur- 
round them  with  such  conditions  that  their  pru- 
dent brain-cells  would  tell  them  they  could  not  get 
away  with  the  goods  even  if  they  tried. 

This  is  plain  common  sense,  as  it  seems  to  us. 
But  what  have  we  been  doing  in  this  country  for  a 
hundred  years?  Why,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
Congress  has  no  constitutional  power  to  jeopard- 
ize the  life  of  an  American  citizen,  except  so  far 


439 

as  to  make  him  bear  arms  in  the  country's  defense 
or  the  enforcement  of  its  laws,  nevertheless  our 
Congressmen,    and   the   President,    have   absolute 
power  in  times  of  peace,  in  return  for  any  bribe 
to  their  ambitions  or  to  their  purses,  to  take  the 
lives  of  whole  groups  of  American  citizens.     For 
they  have  the  power  to  make  laws  which  will  mow 
flown  the  sources  of  employment  and  so  the  lives 
of  millions  of  our  citizens  at  once,  in  order  to 
make  way  here  in  our  market  for  foreign  goods, 
the  manufacturers  of  which,  as  represented  by  the 
great  Importing  Trust  in  this  country,  may,  by 
some  means,  have  prevailed  upon  Congress  and  the 
President  :to   abolish   discrimination   in   favor  of 
American  Production  and  allow  a  cost-20  world 
to  invade  our  cost-100  country  with  its  goods.    To 
do  this  is  and  always  has  been  just  as  surely  to 
destroy  the  lives  of  countless  Americans  as  if  there 
had  been  passed  a  national  law  which  marched 
forth   a  million  or  so  of  our  wage-producers  to 
face  a  wall  and  have  their  backs  bored  with  bullets 
from  the  muskets  of  firing  files  from  a  fort.     It 
matters  not  that  this  result  has  been  brought  about 
by  laws  ostensibly  made  to  regulate  customs  duties. 
The  efficient  cause  of  such  legislation  was  the  pur- 
pose to  destroy   American   employment;   and  the 
destruction   of   employment  is  the  destruction   of 
life;  and  reasoning  beings  are  chargeable  with  in- 
touding  to  do  exactly  what  their  acts  are  the  in- 
evitable cause  of.     This  domestic  market  of  ours 
is  our  most  valuable  treasure.     It  is  more  sought 
after  by  foreign  lobbies  in  Washington  than  gold 
mines  are  sought  after  by  the  rest  of  us.    And  yet 
we  place  this  treasure,  all  uncounted,  at  the  dis- 
posal of  our  Inw-mnkevs!  in  Washington  as  freely  as 


440 

if  it  were  a  babbling  spring  on  the  Capitol  grounds. 
The  Constitution  prohibits  Congress  from  depriv- 
ing anybody  of  "life,  liberty,  or  property  with- 
out due  process  of  law''  and  from  taking  pri- 
vate property  *  *  *  *  for  public  use  without 
just  compensation."  And  yet  we  let  Congress  do 
both  of  these  things  by  merely  whipping  the  devil 
around  the  stump  of  tariff  legislation. 

But  this  is1  not  all.  Not  only  have  we  placed 
in  the  hands  of  Congress  and  the  President  abso- 
lute power  over  the  greatest  treasure  on  earth, 
but,  by  an  inadvertence  in  our  Constitution,  we 
have  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  President  alone 
power,  under  certain  circumstances,  to  efface  Con- 
gress as  a  deliberative  body  and  use  it  as  a  means 
of  passing  any  law  which  carries  grist  to  his  mill. 
We  have  done  this1  by  giving  him  power,  through 
his  agents  and  emissaries,  to  go  into  any  congress- 
ional district  and  control  the  local  political 
machine  of  an  "insurgent"  Congressman's1  party 
and  destroy  his  political  life  for  getting  in  the  way 
of  the  President's  private  schemes. 

We  have  seen  Mr.  Koosevelt  make  use  of  this 
power  to  effect  the  Cuban  Treaty,  and  to  pass  the 
Hepburn  law,  which  latter  was  simply  for  the  pur- 
pose of  burning  incense  to  the  idol  in  the  White 
House ;  since,  because  of  the  Elkins  Law,  the  Hep- 
burn-Roosevelt law  was  wholly  superfluous  from 
the  start  and  known  to  be  so  by  the  President's  ad- 
visers; and  in  addition  to  these  two  iniquities,  this 
same  power  will  probably  be  used  to  get  congress- 
ional approval  of  the  infamous  German  Agreement, 
and  very  likely  to  pass  a  measure  for  free  trade 
with  the  Philippine  Islands.  Three  of  these  meas- 
ures strike  at  the  bread  and  butter  of  the  country ; 
for  they  are  calculated  to  cut  off  employment  of 


labor  here  at  home,  arrest  property-production  and, 
both  as  to  scope  and  period,  depress  business  in- 
definitely. 

It  is  very  plain  that,  to  make  Congress  and  the 
President  worthy  custodians  of  the  employment, 
and  so  the  lives,  of  all  the  people  of  these  United 
States,  their  brain-cells  should  be  environed  by 
a  constitutional  amendment  making  lawful  any 
discrimination,  by  tariffs  or  otherwise,  in  favor 
of  American  employment,  and  unlawful  the  with- 
drawal of  any  part  of  such  discrimination  once 
effected;  and  the  power  to  make  any  treaty  im- 
pairing that  discrimination  in  any  way  should  be 
taken  away  from  the  Senate. 

It  is  unfair  to  Congress  and  the  President  thus 
to  leave  at  their  mercy  an  uncounted  and  unin- 
ventoried  treasure  as  great  as  our  domestic  em- 
ployment, a  treasure,  the  marketable  value  of 
which,  in  hard  dollars'  and  cents,  is  too  tremen- 
dous for  calculation.  To  carve  it  up  in  large  or 
small  slices  and  sell  it  abroad  in  exchange  for  one 
consideration  or  another,  is  a  temptation  greater 
than  our  servants  should  be  called  upon  to  with- 
stand. That  our  employment  has1  thus  been  carved 
up  and  sold  in  the  past  is  evidenced  by  the  thou- 
sand successes  our  Importing  Trust  has  scored  in 
pilfering  our  employment  for  its  intelligence  office 
abroad.  Just  now  it  is  bribing  our  newspapers  to 
help  it  take  away  the  employment  of  the  wage-pro- 
ducers in  our  paper  mills. 

We  ordinary  mortals,  with  half  an  eye,  may  see 
the  perils  of  this  situation.  The  condition  of  our 
Constitution  in  this  respect,  giving,  as  it  does, 
power  to  our  national  law-makers  to  sell  to  the  Im- 
porting Trust,  either  for  cash  or  some  other  con- 


442 

sideration,  any  portion  of  our  employment  or  do- 
mestic market  they  choose,  puts  a  premium  on 
bribery  and  corruption  and  makes  treason  to 
our  national  interests  in  this  regard  unpunish- 
able. In  the  matter  of  faithlessness  to  our 
employment,  neither  of  our  leading  political 
parties  has  an  unpurchasable  scruple.  The  Re- 
publican machine  is  no  better  in  that  regard  than 
the  Democratic,  a  fact  which  has  been  proved  by 
more  than  one  betrayal.  For  instance,  the  ink 
was  hardly  dry  on  the  Republican  Party's  plat- 
form pledge  to  our  sugar-growers,  before  the  Repub- 
licans ratified  the  Cuban  Treaty,  which  was  a  ruth- 
less abandonment  of  all  the  sugar-growing  inter- 
ests of  this  country  to  tropical  competition.* 
And  there  seems  little  doubt  that,  under  the  heel 
of  the  insistent  Roosevelt,  the  same  chameleon 
party  will  follow  up  its  Cuban  treachery  by  free 
trade  with  the  Philippine  Islands,  which,  combined 
with  Cuban,  Porto  Rican  and  Hawaiian  competi- 
tion, would,  in  ten  years,  absolutely  destroy  the 
last  sugar  mill  and  sugar  and  rice  plantation  in 
the  United  States. 

Now,  gentle  reader,  you  may  be  assured  that 
there  is  a  vulgar  quid  pro  quo,  in  cash  or  votes, 
for  every  lapse  of  tariff  virtue  on  the  part  of  the 
G.  O.  P.,  just  as  much  as  there  is  for  lapses  by 
the  Democratic  Party  from  its  cardinal  principles. 
Xo  political  party  is  ever  better  than  it  is  com- 


*"  In  1907  nine  months     *       *     *  we  imported     *     *      * 
of  cane   sugrar   4,733,000,000     *      *      *    pouuds 
an  increase  [over  the  corresponding  nine  months  of  1906]   of 
600,000,000  pounds."     N.   Y.  Sun,  Thursday  Nov.  21.  1907. 

If  the  Cuban  Treaty  and  free  trade  with  Hawaii  and  Porto 
Rico  had  not  dampened  the  ardor  of  our  sugar  producers,  at 
least  this  additional  600,000,000  pounds  of  sugar  would  have 
been  produced  in  the  United  States  by  this  date.  Fd, 


443 

pelied  to  be.  The  only  way  to  make  and  keep  it 
good  is  to  hedge  its  brain-cells  all  round  about 
with  an  environment  that  will  put  it  in  the  peni- 
tentiary if  it  does  not  tote  fair;  and  the  way  to 
make  our  employment  safe  against  Congress  and 
the  President,  is  to  fence  it  in  and  put  up  signs, 
"The  President  and  Congress  will  please  keep  off 
of  this  lawn,''  and  if  they  don't  obey  the  sign, 
send  the  sheriff  after  them. 

In  tossing  away  our  domestic  employment  for 
this1  or  that  consideration  best  known  to  himself, 
Mr.  Roosevelt,  in  the  way  that  anybody  of  mature 
mind  should  have  expected,  has  met  our  Uncle- 
Rube-like  trust  in  the  way  that  Uncle  Rubes' 
usually  are  met.  Unless  some  one  calls  a  halt  on 
him  there  seems  no  ground  to  believe  that  he  will 
not  take  a  step  nearer  pleasure  and  farther  from 
pain  by  selling  another  section  of  our  employment 
market  to  some  other  foreign  War-Lord.  Our  em- 
ployment market  seems  to  be  about  his  best  asset 
for  buying  popularity  of  foreign  potentates. 

Now,  we  believe  that  we  should  nail  the  Presi- 
dent and  Congress  by  constitutional  amendments 
to  such  an  environment  that  they  cannot  monkey 
in  any  way  with  our  employment  market  here  at 
home,  any  more  than  they  can  take  any  other  prop- 
erty of  ours  and  sell  it  for  their  own  benefit,  "with- 
out due-  process  of  law;"  or  any  more  than  they 
can  march  any  of  us1  up  to  certain  execution  at 
the  musket's  mouth,  except  in  defense  of  law  and 
order. 

Thf  next  thing  we  should  do  should  be  to  join 
in  arranging  such  an  evironment  here  for  us  all 
that,  when  our  respective  brain-cells  had  so  per- 
muted and  combined  themselves  as  to  make  the 


444 

most  01  it,  we  should  find  that  the  very  same  things 
led  us  all  towards  pleasure  and  away  from  pain, 
at  one  and  the  same  time,  at  least  as  far  as  em- 
ployment, wages,  and  business  were  concerned. 
How  would  we  do  this?  Why,  simply  by  fixing 
it  so  all  employment  to  meet  American  wants 
should  be  divided  among  wage-producers  within 
the  United  States  of  America.  But  we  should 
swear  in  wage-producers  in  some  way  so  they  could 
not  imitate  the  Italians,  Hungarians,  Canadians, 
and  others,  who  come  here  over  summer,  get 
all  of  our  jobs  they  can,  and  then  go  back  for  the 
winter  to  their  foreign  homes  and,  in  the  shape 
of  our  cash,  scatter  our  American  employment  all 
over  their  own  countries  instead  of  here.  That  is 
not  the  fair  T)lay  which  we  believe  in.  The  square- 
ness of  the  deal  is  above  our  reach.  The  dealer 
to  us  all  is  our  Maker — in  whom  we  still  trust 
nevertheless — and  we  cannot  go  behind  those  re- 
turns. But  what  we  do  believe  in  is  fair  play 
amonsr  those  to  whom  Divine  Providence  has 
alre^dv  dealt  more  or  less  favorable  hands. 

We  would  so  fix  it  that  every  wage-producer  who 
stayed  with  us  here  through  thick  and  thin,  whether 
he  was  an  immigrant  of  thirty  days  or  of  three 
centuries'  standing, — for  we  are  all  immigrants 
in  various  stages  of  baking — had  an  equal  right 
with  every  other  like  wage-producer  to  get  all  the 
errmlovment  he  could  in  this  American  domestic 
market.  We  would  calk  up  so  tight  every  leak 
in  our  boat,  however  beaten  upon  by  foreign  seas, 
that  we  would  have  no  foreign -trade  bilge- water 
in  our  hold.  It  would  be  impossible  to  "cuss  out" 
class  legislation  then.  Every  gander  would  have 
the  samp  «s-nnre  as  every  goose.  Nobodv  could  taunt 
the  protective  tariff — protective  in  very  truth — 


445 

with  taking  money  out  of  the  pocket  of  one  citi- 
zen and  putting  it  in  the  pocket  of  another.  For 
the  same  dike  would  stand  between  all  and  the 
foreign  deluge.  We  would  all  be  standing  on  the 
same  plateau,  above  foreign  countries  both  in 
wages,  prices,  and  level  of  life.  And  if  any  man 
failed  to  find  a  market,  at  the  American  price,  for 
his  own  muscle,  mind,  or  goods;  in  other  words, 
if,  in  the  higher  wages  or  prices  caused  by  the 
dike,  he  failed  to  get  back  his  higher  cost  caused 
by  the  dike,  it  would  be  because  he  was  too  lazy 
to  work  in  our  industrial  hive.  If  he  preferred  to 
be  a  drone,  that  would  be  his  funeral.  He  should 
furnish  the  corpse  and  not  we. 

Why,  gentle  reader,  the  only  way  in  which  we 
can  have  here  a  sound  industrial  body  (let's  call 
it  an  "Industriuin"  for  short,  and  to  distinguish 
it  from  "Imperium")  is  to  cut  off  foreign  trade 
and  convert  our  international  peddlers  into  use- 
ful, honest,  patriotic  citizens.  They  are  only 
wandering  birds  of  prey  now.  They  really  have 
no  abiding  city.  They  peddle  abroad  a  country's 
produce  or  its  employment  in  any  way  they  find 
most  profitable  until  they  have  peddled  it  dry; 
and  then  they  fling  away  the  empty  orange  skin 
and  find  an  orange  somewhere  else.  But  we  should 
make  them  a  part  of  us;  make  them  peddle  among 
our  people  at  home  our  goods  made  at  home;  for 
they  cannot  live  without  peddling.  It  is  born  in 
them;  and  we  hate  the  cruelty  which  would  make 
them  work  for  a  living.  We  should  draw  their 
claws  and  make  them  nice  purring  little  helpmates 
to  us1  all. 

Wo  would  utterly  kill  foreign  trade  by  benevo- 
lent degrees.  For  our  American  Tndustrium  is 


446 

like  our  bodies.  We  cannot  jab  it  full  of  holes 
with  foreign  trade  and  have  it  healthy  and  happy 
any  more  than  we  can  jab  our  bodies  full  'of  holes 
and  be  healthy  and  happy.  And  so  we  say,  "Set 
these  Importing  and  Exporting  Trust  peddlers  at 
s'onie  other  job  than  jabbing  our  Industrium  full 
of  holes."  Xo  matter  how  much  they  chatter  and 
clatter  about  it  or  what  kinds  of  money  they  arm 
their  congressional  lobbies  with,  we  ought  to  cut 
them  out. 

Let  us  look  at  this  Industrium  business  a  mom- 
ent, gentle  reader. 

Every  civilized  country  has  its  Industrium  in 
a  greater  or  smaller  degree  of  perfection.  Sup- 
pose we  merge  all  the  Industria  of  foreign  coun- 
tries into  one  and  call  them  the  "Foreign  Indus- 
trium,"  as  compared  with  our  own,  which  we  will 
call  the  "Domestic  Industrium."  Now,  in  order 
to  study  closely  their  relations,  let  us  build  these 
two  Industria  right  near  each  other  and  take  a 
good  look  at  them.  Like  this: 

DOMESTIC  INDUSTRIUM. 


f  Property-     ~j          |"  Property- 


J    Capital   V_^_J    Production.    I — J    Preservation. 
V   t  *  "  ]    Wage-  f~  ~  ]       Wage- 

^   Labor  J          ^  Production.   J          I  Production. 


Transportation  J          C  Distribution,  or 

Wage-  r=^J      "Business. 

Production.  "1  Wage- 

^     Production. 


447 

FOREIGN   INDUSTRIUM. 

(Same  as  preceding.) 
To  explain  the  terms  used  in  these  schemes: 

Property-Production  embraces  manufacturing, 
mining,  and  farming. 

Wage-Production  is  what  the  worker  is  doing. 
Wage-Production  is  the  factor  common  to  all  these 
divisions  of  the  "Industrium." 

Property-Preservation  takes  in  the  work  of  all 
people  engaged  in  things  which  directly  or  indi- 
rectly maintain  property. 

Transportation  takes  in  every  means  of  taking 
goods  or  people  from  one  place  to  another. 

Distribution  is  storing  and  delivering  goods  by 
whatever  means. 

Now  you  will  observe  that  both  in  the  Domestic 
and  the  Foreign  Industrium,  Capital  and  Labor 
are  the  basis  of  it  all.  This  is  so  everywhere.  These 
two  factors  are  the  drivers  of  the  whole  tandem 
represented  in  our  scheme.  You  cannot  have  act- 
ive capital  without  having  active  labor;  and  act- 
ive labor  indicates  active  capital.  Any  condition 
which  will  keep  capital  flowing  into  Property-Pro- 
duction will  keep  this  merry  tandem  in  motion. 
But  shrink  your  capital  and  you  have  shrunken 
every  member  of  this  procession. 

The  main  thing,  however,  to  which  we  wish  to 
call  your  attention  is  the  universality  of  Wage- 
Production  and  so  of  Wage-Producers  throughout 
this  scheme.  The  whole  thing,  in  fact  is  wage- 
production;  and  every  human  being  that  works 
anywhere  in  this  combination  is  a  wage-producer, 
whether  he  is  a  ditch-digger,  a  trolley-driver,  a 


448 

bank  president,  or  the  head  of  one  of  our  horrid 
"trusts."  And  all  wage-producers  depend  for  their 
lives  upon  the  comparative  volume  of  the  capital 
which  flows  into  Property-Production,  which  is 
nothing  more  or  less  than  the  great  job  provided 
by  the  country's  doing  its  own  work.  Make  this 
job  smaller,  and  you  make  proportionately  smaller 
the  volume  of  capital  flowing  into  Property-Pro- 
duction, and  so  into  Property-Preservation,  so  into 
Transportation,  and  so  into  Business,  and  all  along 
the  line  you  throw  out  of  the  ranks  of  wage-pro- 
ducers people  who  must  faint  and  fail  the  moment 
their  wage-production  ceases. 

Property-Production,  animated  by  capital  seek- 
ing investment,  is  the  mainspring  which  moves 
every  other  division  in  our  scheme;  and  the  de- 
gree of  its  activity  is  directly  proportioned  to  the 
percentage  of  the  work  for  the  country  which  is 
done  by  the  country. 

To  be  sure  we  get  the  idea,  let  us  analyze  each 
of  these  divisions  a  little,  and  see  how  each  one 
of  them  contributes1  to  "Business"  by  the  main- 
tenance of  our  great  army  of  wage-producers,  all 
of  whom  buy  from  "Business"  their  necessaries 
and  luxuries,  paying  therefor  the  wages  they  have 
produced  in  the  various  divisions  of  our  "Indus- 
trium,"  which,  after  all,  is  the  same  as  "Employ- 
ment." 

Starting  with  Property-Production,  what  are 
wage-producers  doing  here?  Why,  they  are  manu- 
facturing property  for  use,  not  only  in  Property- 
Production  but  in  Property-Preservation,  Trans- 
portation, and  Business1  itself;  all  of  which  prop- 
erty, as  fast  as  made,  is  being  delivered  by  Prop- 
erty-Production to  Distribution,  or  "Business," 
in  exchange  for  the  very  wages  which  Property- 


449 

Production  has  previously  paid  wage-producers, 
who  have  bought  with  them  of  "Business"  stores 
which  Property-Production  had  previously  lodged 
with  "Business." 

In  the  division  of  Property-Preservation,  again, 
the  whole  thing  is  run  by  wage-producers,  who  are 
taking  care  of  property  in  various  ways.  In  this 
division  belong  our  army  and  navy,  our  police  and 
constabulary,  and  our  militia.  Our  doctors,  law- 
yers and  ministers  also  belong  here,  the  doctors 
preserving  lives  and  therefore  preserving  the  pre- 
servers of  property;  the  lawyers  preserving  prop- 
erty titles  and  property-rights;  the  ministers 
inculcating  morals  and  making  both  life  and  prop- 
erty safer.  And  in  this1  division,  too,  belong  all  the 
wage-producers  in  insurance  companies.  And  all 
these  wage-producers,  too,  carry  their  wages  to 
"Business"  to  exchange  for  the  work  done  by 
Property-Production. 

In  the  division  of  Transportation,  we  have 
another  great  swarm  of  wage-producers1,  who  also 
depend  for  their  jobs  entirely  upon  Property-Pro- 
duction, since  their  business  is  moving  the  output 
of  Property-Production.  A  glance  at  the  employ- 
ment lists  of  our  railroad,  telegraph,  express1,  and 
steamship  companies,  to  say  nothing  of  the  great 
crowd  of  small  proprietors  of  hacks,  express- 
wagons,  and  messenger  routes,  would  give  some 
idea  of  how  great  a  figure  Transportation  cuts  in 
the  country's1  employment  and  the  host  of  wage- 
producers  which  it  is  daily  sending  to  "Business" 
for  supplies. 

In  the  division  of  Distribution,  commonly  called 
"Business,"  the  wage-production  is  also  colossal. 
A  count  of  the  clerks,  salesmen,  foremen,  buyers, 
packers,  and  the  like,  employed  in  a  single  great 


450 

department  store  would  give  a  clear  notion  of  the 
gigantic     proportions     of     this     wage-producing 
branch  of  our  Industriuiu.    There  is  this  to  be  said 
further  about  this  Division  that  it  is  the  clearing 
house  of  Property-Production.     It  is  where  pro- 
ducts are  liquidated  by  the  wages  of  our  great 
Wage-Production,  made  up  as  it  is  from  contri- 
butions from  the  millions  of  workers  in  the  various 
divisions  of  our  Industriuin.     As  the  whole  coun- 
try's active  industrial  life  rests  firmly  upon  Prop- 
erty-Production,  so  Property-Production  depends 
upon  "Business"  to  make  its  product  fluid  and,  by 
the  purchase  of  its  product,  to  return  to  it  the  capi- 
tal without  which  it  could  not  proceed.    Any  break- 
ing of  the  return  current  of  capital  from  "Busi- 
ness" to  Property-Production,  strangles  Property- 
Production     which     strangles1     wage-production, 
which  strangles  "Business"  in  the  large  national 
sense,  which  strangles  people  to  physical  death. 

Now,  we,  a  wage-100  country,  therefore  a  cost- 
100  country,  and  therefore  a  life-100  country,  are 
surrounded  on  all  sides  by  a  world  in  which  wages 
average  20,  costs  average  20,  'and  life  averages  20. 
And  here  is  the  great  opportunity  for  the  inter- 
national peddler,   the  destroyer  of  national  life. 
Naturally  enough,  he  wants  to  put  the  difference 
between  our  cost-100  and  the  foreign  cost-20  in 
his  pocket,  or  as  much  of  it  as  he  can  get,  say  a 
commission  of  about  78  points.    He  puts  up  a  con- 
siderable money  to  do  it,  either  in  maintaining  a 
bureau  of  education,  to  touch  people's  hearts1  with 
the  sufferings  of   the   poor  Cubans   or   the    little 
brown  men;  or  in  maintaining  a  straight  lobby  to 
snare  in  the  President  and  Congress.     Suppose  he 
succeeds  and  gets  a  Cuban  Treaty,  German  Agree- 
ment,  a  French  Reciprocity  Arrangement,  or  an 


451 

out  and  out  "revision"-  -  what  then?    Well,  here 
is  where  the  Foreign  liidustriuin  comes  in.     Our 
peddler  is  the  direct  agent  and  commission  repre- 
sentative of  the  entire  Foreign  Industriuni.    There- 
fore, right  alongside  of  our  Domestic  Industrium, 
he  sets  up  his  branch  office  representing  the  For- 
eign Industrium,  in  the  form  of  a  booth  crammed 
with  goods  "Made  in  Germany,"  "Made  in  France," 
and  so  on,  and  baits  his  trap  with  advertisements 
cutting  under  American  cost-100  by,  say,  a  couple 
of    points.      Now    like    shortsighted    children    of 
mature   our  wage-producers  come   along   and   see 
these  attractions  in  price  and  immediately  proceed 
to  feather  the  arrows  which  a  little  later  drink 
their  own  heart's  blood;  for  they  fall  into  the  in- 
ternational peddler's  trap  and  buy  goods  the  price 
of  which  does  not  go  back  to  our  own  Industrium 
division,  Property-Production,  but  scoots  off  across 
the  water  and  swells  the  Property-Production  of 
the  Foreign  Industrium;  and  just  exactly  in  the 
measure  that  our  wage-producers  patronize  the  in- 
ternational peddler,  does  the  stream  of  our  capi- 
tal   returning    to    Property-Production    diminish, 
and  so  diminish  the  stream  flowing  through  Prop- 
erty-Preservation,  Transportation,   and  American 
Business.     The    moment    this    stream    begins    to 
slacken,  wage-producers  begin  to  be  laid  off  all 
the   way   from   Property-Production,  through  the 
entire  tandem  of  our  Industrium  to  and  includ- 
ing "Business ;"  and  hard  times  are  beginning,  just 
as1  they  are  now  because  of  the  German  Agreement, 
the  Cuban  Treaty,  free  trade  with  Porto  Rico  and 
Hawaii  and  the  general  slackness  and  deviltry  in 
our  customs  service,  aided  and  abetted  by  the  Roose- 
velt Administration  in  discharging  Mr.  Wakeman 
and  exiling  other  customs  officials  who  were  faith- 


452 

ful  to  their  stewardship  of  the  great  American  Tar- 
iff anti-Deluge  Dike.  And  just  as  our  Industrium 
waxes  weak  and  weary  by  the  operations  of  our 
international  peddler  and  our  German  Agreements, 
the  Foreign  Industrium  becomes  inflated  with  rich 
red  blood,  and,  beginning  with  Great  Britian  and 
going  east  to  the  eastern  shores  of  Japan,  you 
hear  across  the  water  the  increasing  whirr  and 
clatter,  rattle  and  hum  of  the  shops  and  factories 
abroad.  And  now  the  world  chucks  us  under  the 
chin  and  says  we  are  such  fine  fellows,  just  as  the 
German  War-Lord  did  Dr.  Nicholas  Murray  But- 
ler, of  Columbia  College,  who  came  home  so 
warmed  with  the  cordiality  of  royalty  that,  in 
order  that  this  cup  of  cordiality  might  remain  for- 
ever full,  he  wanted  the  tariff-dike  tumbled  down 
some  more  right  away. 

After  this  sort  of  thing  goes  on  a  while,  we  be- 
gin to  sicken  from  "over-production" — in  foreign 
Industria.  Millions  of  our  wage-producers  are  out 
of  employment,  and  hard  times  of  the  hardest- 
boiled  kind  engulf  the  country.  The  strong  weaken 
and  the  weakened  die  all  around  us,  just  from  the 
tightening  of  the  grip  of  this  international  ped- 
dler on  our  industrial  throats;  and  we  are  broken 
out  all  over  with  the  small-pox  of  over-produc- 
tion ;  that  is,  with  the  monoply  by  the  Foreign  In- 
dustrium, employing  foreign  labor,  of  the  terri- 
tory naturally  belonging  to  the  Domestic  Indus- 
trium employing  domestic  labor.  But  it  is  a  good 
ways  to  the  next  congressional  election;  and  still 
farther,  perhaps,  to  the  next  presidential  election, 
when,  may  be,  the  people  will  be  wide  awake  enough 
to  the  source  of  their  trouble  to  displace  a  com- 
placent Roosevelt,  a  rollicking  Taft,  or  a  Gennan- 
Agreement-making  Root.  And  so  the  country  wal- 


453 

lows  on  in  the  deep  mire  of  misery  year  after  year. 
Panic  after  panic  sweeps  the  country,  as  it  sinks 
deeper  and  deeper  in  the  poverty  puddle.  Not  weak 
little,  so-called  "Roosevelt"  panics,  caused  by  cur- 
rency-hoarders, but  real  deep-down  ague  spasms 
caused  by  the  chill  of  dissolution  creeping  closer 
and  closer  to  the  patient's  heart. 

The  cost  to  the  country  of  supplanting  its  own 
Industrium  by  the  Foreign  Industrium  in  this  way 
is  too  great  for  calculation;  because  it  is  paid  not 
only  in  almost  uncountable  money-heaps  but  also 
in  the  lives  of  whole  armies  of  our  people;  in  the 
degradation  of  yet  greater  armies;  and  in  the  cur- 
tailment of  vitality  of  the  entire  national  life. 

And  yet  we  have  experienced  this  many  times 
and  shall  experience  it  in  the  future  just  as  often 
as  the  campaign  of  the  Importing  Trust,  with  its 
studied  slanders  and  libels  against  our  "trusts," 
American  Production,  our  "Malefactors  of  Great 
Wealth,"  and  our  "Very  Rich  Men,"  enfuriates  our 
wage-producers  to  the  point  where  they  smash  the 
porridge  pot  from  which  they  are  feeding. 

The  trouble  at  this  present  writing  is  that  we 
have  been  so  flippant  in  our  choice  of  a  President, 
so  much  given  to  hero-worship  rather  than  the  wor- 
ship of  cold  common  sense,  that  we  find  on  our 
hands  a  President  who,  whether  he  has  intended 
it  or  not,  has  played  right  into  the  hands  of  our 
international  peddlers,  and,  in  addition  to  his 
Cuban  Treaties  and  foreignizing  of  our  custom 
house,  to  say  nothing  of  his1  German  Agreements, 
has  joined  the  regulation  hue  and  cry  of  our  Im- 
porting Trust  against  American  Production  and 
has  done  his  very  best  to  make  it  more  perilous  to 
do  American  business  than  to  scale  the  Wetter- 
horn. 


454 

Now,  gentle  reader,  don't  you  agree  with  us 
that  we  should  all  join  in  building  in  this  country 
an  environment  too  strenuous  for  the  brain-cells 
of  the  Importing  Trust  to  flourish  in?  Or,  at 
any  rate,  one  in  which  all  its  members  may  be 
turned  to  good  account  in  adding  to  the  red-blood 
corpuscles  of  our  Domestic  Industrium?  We 
think  there  should  not  be  two  opinions  about  this. 

Now,  gentle  reader,  in  making  the  nation  do  all 
its  own  work  and  itself  taking  the  pay  therefor, 
and  honestly  paying  its  own  workers,  there  is  a 
panacea  for  national  ailments,  if  it  is  dili- 
gently used.  We  all  need  the  money;  for  unfor- 
tunately we  have  to  eat,  drink,  wear  clothes,  and 
sleep  and,  in  this  climate,  sleep  under  cover.  This 
is  the  medicine  that  poor  little  Porto  Rico  needs; 
and  so  does  Cuba;  and  so  do  the  Philippine  Islands. 
No  other  dose  goes  to  the  spot.  Why,  you  know 
they  said  that  if  we  would  only  give  poor  little 
Porto  Rico  our  domestic  market,  she  would  blos- 
som as  the  rose.  She  got  our  market;  and  to  pay 
for  it,  in  some  things  we  are  getting  it  in  the  neck. 
But  even  at  that  cost  to  us,  it  did  not  help  poor 
little  Porto  Eico.  She  did  not  blossom  as  the  rose. 
She  is  hollering  all  the  time  that  she  is  dying  of 
something  on  her  inside.  But,  if  Congress  would 
only  build  a  coffer-dam  around  about  that  poor 
little  island,  a  good  high  tariff-dam,  and  then  pump 
out  all  the  water  of  foreign  competition,  so  Porto 
Ricans  could  get  their  breath  and  build  their  in- 
dustries, being  sure  at  least  of  their  own  market 
in  which  to  sell  things,  she  would  begin  to  be  happy 
over  a  single  one  of  her  lovely  tropical  nights. 
She  would  begin  in  a  humble  way,  to  be  sure ;  but 
in  as  large  a  way  as  she  would  be  entitled  to,  a 
way  just  as  large  as  the  market  furnished  by  her 


455 

own  people  for  her  own  products.  That  is  all  any 
of  us  are  entitled  to.  But  Porto  Rico  certainly  is 
entitled  to  that;  and  we  are  a  mean  lot  of  petty 
robbers  to  keep  taking  it  from  her  by  forcing  her 
to  free  trade  with  us,  which  to  the  enslavement  of 
her  common  people,  merely  gives  a  handfufl  of 
coffee  and  sugar  planters  a  chance  to  exploit  her 
eternally,  just  as  England  exploits  Ireland,  India 
and  Egypt,  and  would,  if  she  dared,  Canada,  Aus- 
tralia, and  the  ancient  Boer  Republic. 

To  return  to  our  own  case,  the  first  thing  to 
be  done  is  to  control  these  international  peddlers 
who  constitute  the  Importing  and  Exporting 
Trusts;  and  the  way  to  do  that  is  to  control  Con- 
gress. And,  with  a  little  organization  and  deter- 
mination, that  is  "dead  easy."  Our  wage-produ- 
cers, property-producers,  and  distributors,  or 
"business"  men,  should  form  a  league  in  each  con- 
gressional district,  the  motto  of  which  should  be, 
"This  country  must  do  every  cent's  worth  of  its 
o\vn  work  and  pay  its  own  people  the  wages  there- 
for;'' and  the  practice  of  which  should  be  the  in- 
dorsement of  the  congressional  candidate  of  any 
party  that  would  work  for  the  league  in  Congress1. 

If  no  candidate  for  Congress  could  be  found  who, 
in  exchange  for  its  indorsement,  would  accept  the 
commission  of  such  a  league,  the  league  should 
advance  its  own  candidate. 

There  should  be  as  many  such  leagues  as  there 
are  congressional  districts  in  the  United  States; 
and,  as  fast  as  formed,  the  district  leagues  should 
become  members  of  the  National  Business  League, 
an  organization  having  the  same  motto  as  the  con- 
stituent leagues,  through  which  the  district  leagues 
could  act  as  a  unit,  to  pass  any  congressional  act 
favorable  to  any  industry  represented  in  the  league 


and  to  defeat  any  such  act  of  the  contrary  char- 
acter. "All  for  each  and  each  for  all,"  should  be 
the  rule  of  league  action. 

At  presidential  elections,  the  National  Business 
League  should  indorse  and  work  for  any  candi- 
date who  would  accept  the  commission  of  the 
league  to  protect  American  wage-producers;  pro- 
vided that  the  platform  of  the  party  to  which  such 
candidate  belonged,  contained  the  motto  of  the 
league,  "This  country  must  do  every  cent's  worth 
of  its  own  work  and  pay  its  own  people  the  wages 
therefor." 

If  no  party  would  adopt  the  motto  of  the  cen- 
tral league,  it  should  nominate  its  own  candidate. 

The  final  goal  of  the  national  league  should  be 
a  constitutional  amendment  covering  the  points 
noted  in  our  argument  before  the  Court  of  Appeals 
to  which  this  is  an  addendum ;  and  with  this  would 
come  the  final  elimination  of  raids  on  the  "trust^ 
"malefactors  of  great  wealth."  and  all  the  other 
tricks  by  which  international  peddlers  steal  our 
savings. 

We  cannot  afford  to  forget  that,  at  the  back  of 
all  business,  stands  the  wage-producer,  whether  he 
pushes  a  quill  in  an  office  or  a  pick  in  a  sewer  ditch. 
He  is  99%  of  us  all.  He  is  the  country.  He  con- 
sumes nearly  ten  times  as  much  as  the  average 
consumer  in  the  outside  world.  There  are  some- 
thins:  over  80,000,000  of  him,  equivalent  to  about 
300,000,000  of  the  average  wage-producer  in  the 
outside  world.  Why,  gentle  reader,  if  we  corraled 
him  here  with  a  sky-high  tariff  dike  and  a  similar 
tariff  dam,  and  let  goods  neither  out  nor  in,  as  a 
consumer,  in  a  few  years  he  would  be  worth  as 
much  to  us  business  men  as  a  thousand  millions  of 
the  half-employed  and  half-fed  denizens  of  the 


457 

"markets  of  the  world."  We  could  do  this  so 
easily;  and  yet,  following  the  beck  of  the  inter- 
national peddlers  and  the  direction  their  dollars 
take  with  congressional  lobbies,  we  go  on  passing 
the  hat  like  beggars'  around  among  the  outside  na- 
tions, getting  a  few  dollars  of  trade  here  and  a 
few  dollars  more  there,  and  thinking  we  are  doing 
great  wonders.  The  patronage  of  this  wage-produ- 
cer of  ours  is  the  only  hope  of  all  domestic  produc- 
tion and  business ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  his  only 
hope  is  this  domestic  market  consecrated  to  him 
alone.  Why  not  put  these  destructive  interna- 
tional peddlers  out  of  their  cruel  business  forever; 
make  them  hammer  their  swords  into  ploughshares 
and  pruning  hooks,  take  out  citizens'  papers,  marry 
American  girls,  stop  Mr.  Koos'evelt's  anxiety  about 
race-suicide,  and  pull  with  us  forever  and  forever 
in  keeping  this  domestic  market  exclusively  for 
our  own  wage-producers.  The  wage-producer  is 
our  game.  Let  us  multiply  him,  but  never  divide 
or  subtract  or  distract  him.  Let  us  keep  him  for- 
ever busy,  increase  his  pay  at  every  possible  jump, 
and  make  him  a  better  and  better  buyer  of  our 
goods.  If  we  do  this,  we  business  men  who  sell 
things  to  this  crowd  of  wage-producers  will  have 
the  softest  cinch  in  steady  business,  steady  finan- 
ces and  steady  fortunes  rolling  our  way  that  ever 
was  dreamed  of. 

Then,  again,  by  thus  casting  out  foreign  trade 
with  its  unmanageable  balances  and  our  etern"' 
dependence  upon  "crops"  for  business  stability, 
we  would  solve  'once  and  forever  the  perplexing 
currency  problem. 

Such  a  consummation,  so  devoutly  to  be  wished, 
would  hitch  all  us  real  domestic  business  men  to* 
gether  with  hooks  of  steel,  even  if  we  had  to  buy 


458 

the  hooks'  of  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation 
and  oil  the  chain-joints  with  oil  from  the  Standard 
Oil  Company.    Why,  gentle  reader,  we  would  soon 
find  that  these  monster  "trusts'*  would  not  bite 
us.     Bless  your  dear  heart,  they  couldn't!     Thoy 
would  have  to  work  as  hard  for  us  as  we  did  for 
them.     Do  what  they  might;  get  as  big  and  r 
rich  as  they  pleased;  gather  all  the  power  they 
could,  they  would  still  be  our  servants.    For,  after 
all,  all  'their  wealth   would  be  but  part  of  the 
common  wealth  of  the  country,  driving  our  great- 
est  industries,  paying  the  longest  pay-rolls,  and 
sending  more  and  more  wage-producers  with  fat 
wages  to  our  shops  and  stores',  where  it  would  be 
no  trouble  to  show  goods  and  where  if  our  cus- 
tomers did  not  see  what  they  wanted  they  would 
only  have  to  ask  for  it.     And  all  at  a  margin  for 
us. 

We  would  s'oon  learn  that  all  Malefactors  of 
Great  Wealth,  whose  total  Avickedness  was  only 
being  wealthy,  whether  they  liked  it  or  not,  were 
our  greatest  friends;  for  they  could  not  get,  keep, 
and  add  to  wealth  Avithout  helping  us  do  exactly 
the  same  thing. 

We  American  business  men  should  all  get  to- 
gether on  the  platform  of  "All  American  Business 
for  American  Business  Men."  We  ought  to  let 
nil  our  old  party  ties  go.  They  make  us*  no  money; 
but  the  new  business  ties  Avould  make  it  for  us 
and  plenty  of  it. 

In  this  matter  of  loyalty  to  American  business 
there  should  be  no  North,  no  South,  no  East,  no 
West;  and  in  it  there  should  be  no  Republican, 
no  Democrat,  no  Prohibitionist,  no  Labor  man,  no 
Socialist,  no  Anarchist,  and  no  stnlker  of  Male- 


459 

factors  of  Great  Wealth.    In  this  combination  there 
would  be  wealth  enough  for  every  one — if  he  earned 
it.    In  fact,  this  sort  of  a  combination  would  make 
all  the  reasons'  for  the  old  political  divisions  melt 
like  mists  at  summer's  midday.     Our  brain-cells 
would  all  be  set  to  the  same  music  by  our  happy 
environment.     We  would  all  be  pulling  in  perfect 
rhyme  and  time  in  the  same  direction ;  that  is1,  we 
would  all  be  pulling  away  from  pain  and  towards 
pleasure — and  most  of  us  would  get  there.     We 
would  be  wealth-shy  no  longer.    We  would  be  get- 
ting so  rich  ourselves  that  none  of  us  would  like 
to  hear  Jeremiads'  against  "very  rich  wrongdoers." 
And  all  the  time  we  would  be  gettting  more  and 
more  persuaded  that  wealth  gained  by  hard  work 
never  could  hurt  anybody.     We  would  get  it  out 
of  our  heads  that  Malefactors  of  Great  Wealth 
were  any  different  from  the  rest  of  us.    We  would 
find  they  were  not  monsters,  but  on  the  contrary 
were  very  human.     We  would  find  blood  in  their 
bodies.    We  would  notice  that,  when  we  cut  them, 
they  bled  the  same  as  other  folk.    We  would  also 
find  that  some  of  them  had  larger  and  some  smaller 
hearts  than  ours ;  and  that  the  most  of  the  greatest 
of  them  had  hearts  as  large  and  as  warm  as  their 
fortunes;  for  we  would  realize  that,  after  all,  sym- 
pathy makes  for  success  in  dealing  with  ones  fel- 
low  men   and   making  large  masses  of  interests 
march  in  harmony,  the  harmony  which  makes  great 
wealth.     If  we  reflected  a  little,  we  would  realize 
that  the  great  majority  of  Malefactors  of  Very 
Great  Wealth  do  lots  of  good  with  their  money, 
and  that  it  is  they  who  endow  colleges',  build  hos- 
pitals,   orphan    asylums,    libraries,    and    in    other 
ways  do  the  very  best  thing  with  their  money  that 
possibly  could  be  done  for  broad  humanity,  but 


460 

never  would  be  done  except  for  so  much  money 
coming  under  the  control  of  a  single  owner  and 
his  having  so  much  of  it  that  anxiety  for  his  own 
outcome  is  laid  aside  and  his1  nobler  impulses  given 
a  chance  to  flourish. 

But  it  will  take  some  cold  calculation  and  some 
hard  work  for  us  to  get  started  on  this  road.  In 
the  first  place,  we  have  a  presidential  election  just 
ahead  and  we  want  to  make  sure  and  not  commit 
the  same  blunder  we  did  four  years  ago.  The  last 
man  in  the  world  to  be  President  of  these  United 
States  is  a  man  who  knows  nothing  about  hard- 
headed  business,  the  science  of  markets,  and  the 
necessities  of  domestic  trade,  and  who  thinks  he 
can  barter  away  the  American  domestic  market 
in  sections,  as  if  it  were  sections  of  his  own  kitchen 
garden,  giving  to  a  favorite  here  one  section  and 
to  a  favorite  there  another  section,  and  generally 
showing  no  more  real  intelligence  about  the  coun- 
try's absolute  dependence  upon  domestic  prop- 
erty-production than  a  five-months'  Louisiana  bear 
cub.  What  we  need  for  a  President  of  this  coun- 
try is  a  sound-headed,  careful  business  man,  whose 
heart  is  too  large  to  ignore  the  connection  between 
a  man's  employment  and  his  stomach,  and  the  con- 
nection also  between  a  man's  stomach  and  his  life; 
and  whose  simple  common  sense  is  strong  enough 
to  understand  that  you  cannot  give  away  the  coun- 
try's employment  to  the  Cubans,  the  Germans,  the 
French,  the  Philippine  Islands  and  other  people 
and  at  the  same  time  keep  it  for  wage-producers 
in  the  United  States.  And  rather  than  a  politician 
for  such  a  place,  we  would  prefer  a  man  who  had 
had  head  enough  to  make  a  fortune  of  his  own, 
head  enough  to  keep  it  after  it  was  made,  and 


461 

nevertheless  head  enough  not  to  lose  his  head  be- 
cause he  had  power,  as  the  people's  servant,  even 
great  enough  to  control  the  press  and  to  efface 
Congress1.  In  short,  than  such  a  politician,  we 
would  far  rather  see  go  to  the  White  House  some 
level-headed  Malefactor  of  Great  Wealth.* 


*  A  practical  question  is  what  candidate  business  men  and 
wage-producers  should  back  in  1908  for  President.  Mr.  Roose- 
velt, Mr.  Taft,  or  any  one  chosen  by  Mr.  Roosevelt  should  he 
out  of  the  question.  Of  those  who  would  be  certain  to  do 
nothing  to  harm  American  business,  we  mention  the  following 
in  their  order  of  desirability: 

SENATOR  FORAKEE:  He  has  proven  himself  a  statesman  of  sin- 
gularly fine  poise  and  breadth.  His  belief  in  the  pre- 
sumption of  innocence  until  guilt  proven,  is  finely  illus- 
trated by  his  inquiry  into  the  Brownsville  affair.  His 
cool,  logical,  and  patriotic  defense  of  the  Constitution  in 
the  matter  of  the  Hepburn  rate-law  made  him  many  ad- 
mirers:  and  his  devotion  to  the  American  wage-producer 
as  against  wage-producers  abroad  is  a  matter  of  common 
knowledge.  Altogether,  Mr.  Foraker  would  make  an  ideal 
candidate  for  indorsement  by  Amercian  Business  and  Amer- 
ican Wage-Production. 

EX-SECRETABT  SHAW  :  Mr.  Shaw,  now  of  New  York  City,  while 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  proved  himself  in  sympathy 
with  the  principle  of  American  Business  for  American 
Business  Men.  He  would  be  "safe  and  sane"  and  make  a 
fine,  steady,  and  reliable  President. 

SPEAKER  CANNON  :  Has  always  stood  "like  a  stone  wall"  In 
defense  of  the  domestic  market  as  the  natural  property  of 
the  domestic  wage-producer. 

GOVERNOR  HUGHES  :  Through  the  haze  of  an  all  too  brief 
public  career,  there  loom  in  Governor  Hughes  the  outlines 
of  a  figure  of  colossal  proportions  in  statecraft.  He  re- 
minds one  of  Abraham  Lincoln  in  his  calmness  and  balance 
and  his  certainty  of  doing  the  wise  thing  at  the  wise  time. 
The  only  point  of  doubt  is  as  to  his  education  on  the  mat- 
ter of  international  trade  and  as  to  whether  he  is  too  much 
in  sympa'thy  with  the  New  York  Importing  Ring  TO  realize 
the  weight  of  the  American  wage-producer's  claim  to  the 
whole  of  his  own  domestic  market.  The  fact  that  a  man 
is  a  Republican  does  not  chalk  him  soxind  on  this  point: 
for  Mr.  Roosevelt  claims  to  be  a  Republican.  One  great 
thing  in  Mr.  Hughes's  favor  is  that  he  is  not  a  politician 
and  does  not  pull  political  wires.  The  Presidency  will  have 
to  hunt  for  him ;  for  ho  will  never  hunt  the  Presidency. 


462 

But  sober  business  men  could  not  afford  to  back  even  men  as 
good  as  these,  unless  the  Republican  platform  unequivocally 
declared  against  any  downward  revision  of  a  single  item  on 
the  tariff  schedule ;  and  as  unequivocally  promised,  a  decided 
increase  in  the  tariff  on  the  rising  tide  of  European  imports 
which  threatens  soon  to  extinguish  our  factory  fires. 

Therefore,  with  the  failure  of  Republican  platform  assur- 
ances of  the  sort  above  outlined,  or  with  the  renomination  of 
Mr.  Roosevelt,  the  nomination  of  Mr.  Taft,  committed  as  he  is 
to  downward  tariff  revision,  or  of  anybody  at  present  in  the 
Roosevelt  Cabinet  or  in  any  way  favored  by  the  present  Wash- 
ington regime,  with  its  open  hostility  to  Amercian  Property- 
Production,  our  business  men  and  wage-producers  should  vote 
for  upward  revision  Congressmen,  and  for  the  uemocratic  pres- 
Identical  candidate,  whose  election  would  then  close  up  the  Re- 
publican ranks  against  downward  revision,  since  neither  the 
House  nor  the  Senate,  if  Republican,  would  consent  to  grind 
Democratic  free-trade  ax«s. 


The  End. 


A     000105290     1 


